Here is a super easy way to make effective fire starters that will have your fire blazing in no time! With a burn time of 15-20 minutes these little bad boys will give you plenty of time to ignite your fire.

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EASY AND EFFECTIVE DIY FIRE STARTERS!
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Step 1: GATHERING THE MATERIALS

For this Inscrutable you will need:

- A roll of tinfoil or aluminium foil.

- A bottle of flammable liquid (I used Fuelite which is a petroleum spirit and this worked best for me).

- Several tealight candles.

- A lighter (or any other ignition tool).

- Cotton balls.

- Scissors.

- Sheet of plastic (I just used an ice cream container lid).

Step 2: CREATING a WAX BASE

Firstly what you will need to do is light around 5-10 tealight candles (you can do more depending on the size of the batch you want to make) and let them burn for a few minutes. Once the wax has heated up and melted you can go ahead and blow out the candles before dunking the bottom half of the cotton balls into the candle wax and placing them on a plastic sheet to dry/harden.

Step 3: ADDING TINFOIL TO THE BASE

While you wait for the wax to harden start cutting out a 2" by 2" square of tinfoil for each cotton ball. Once you have done this check that the wax has hardened then begin adding tinfoil over the wax at the bottom of the cotton ball. To do this pinch all 4 corners of the tinfoil so that they create little tabs (as shown in the pictures) then wrap the tabs around the rest of the cotton ball. This will serve as a dish to keep the wax from dripping away when the firelighter is ignited thus increasing its burn time.

Step 4: ADDING THE PETROLEUM

Now that you have created a wax base on the cotton balls and have wrapped them in tinfoil, it is now time to add the petroleum (other flammable liquids will also work). To do this there is two methods, you can carefully pour the petroleum onto the cotton ball or you can hold it firmly in place at the opening of the bottle and soak the cotton ball by briefly upturning the bottle. I would personally recommend the second method as it gave the cotton ball a more thorough and effective soaking than the first method but its really up to you.

Step 5: STORAGE

You have now completed making your firelighters but if you don't have any use for them immediately (which is mostly the case) then I would greatly recommend storing them in a zip-lock sealed bag out of direct sunlight or heat. This is because heat and sunlight can evaporate some of the petroleum in the firelighters reducing their burn time greatly (I left a batch of mine outdoors in the sun for 3 days as a test and they still had a burn time of around 5 minutes! This is still substantial but its a great decrease from the 15-20 minutes burn time they should have if kept properly).

CONGRATULATIONS! NOW LIGHT THEM UP AND ADMIRE YOUR WORK!