Cinnamon Red Hot Firestarters

      We just added these to our booth at the Cottage Shops in Monticello, Indiana this weekend.  So hubby says, "Where did you see this idea?"  I didn't see it anywhere.  I mean, surely everyone has seen the cinnamon scented pine cones to scent the home and use in the fireplace and then there's those cases of nasty waxy sawdust things that admittedly work well.  Why not combine the two?  This is my experiment that we found works quite well!

      The first batch I cheated and absconded with two red crayons from my kids.  I didn't particularly care for the lack of intensity in the red color, as they resemble pine cones in raw hamburger, but I did use some fantastic cinnamon scent!

     As you can see, I used one of my less than best cupcake pan.  It may have been one obtained at an auction, but it's now been officially designated craft only!  We started with dipping the pine cones in the wax.  Then after mixing in the fresh sawdust out of the shop, we packed the sawdust wax mix around each pine cone.

     After they were cooled, we had to try out my theory.  All I can say is, "WOW"!  I took one out in the back yard and set it in a non-windy area on a stepping stone.  I used ONE wooden match to light the base of the pine cone.  At first I thought the pine cone would burn and I would be left with a wax lump.  The pine cone worked almost like a chimney with the flame about 4-5 inches tall and then the wax bottom was on fire.  We, my son and hubby, actually got tired of watching it burn and walked away.  It was still smoldering about 15 minutes later.  It might burn shorter if it was more windy.  At one point I did stand close and they heat it was putting off was significant.  We've decided that extinguishing it after starting it, might not be an option.  The sign below is what we put on them in the booth.  Definitely a fire starter, not a candle!!!

Mercury Glass

     Mercury Glass seems to be having a resurgence.  Several blogs online give all sorts of tutorials, so no point in doing a repeat.  These are my version.  The interior finish was interesting, but I decided a little fun embellishments were needed.  A little metal banding, slightly antiqued, was exactly what was needed. The middle jar, a Kroger maple syrup bottle was dressed up with a little burlap ribbon and a cotton muslin flower.

     These disappeared out of the booth and so I am getting ready to do another set.  The biggest problem I had last time was getting the paint down inside the bottles.  I bought a spray lubricant that comes with a special nozzle and a little tube.  I'm going to try and swap the nozzle out and use the little tube to shoot the paint.  My biggest concern is it may clog the little tube after the first application.

     One other tip... a heat gun... the type for embossing... works wonders in shortening the time between paint layers.