We love camping, but my husband and I always seem to have . . . difficulties . . . starting a fire. To be perfectly honest, we suck at it. And the store-bought fire starters don’t seem to work very well. They light easily enough, but they appear to be the only things that burn, leaving the kindling a smoldering mess. So, short of dousing the wood with lighter fluid, and possibly losing a couple of eyebrows in the process, I thought maybe I’d try to make some of my own.

I searched various websites for instructions and several of them suggested melting wax blocks or candles in a double boiler, then pouring it over a cardboard egg carton filled with dryer lint. Once cut, you have 12 individual fire starters. That sounded easy enough. I had an egg carton. I had dryer lint. I had scented wax tarts that would substitute for candles (and perhaps keep the bugs away with the aroma?), but I didn’t have a double boiler. I could fashion one using a pot of water and a bowl, but I didn’t want to deal with trying to clean the bowl out. But I did have electric warmers . . .

So I set everything up, melted the tarts, poured the liquid wax over the lint-filled egg carton, and then cut them apart. Now all that remained was to test them on vacation.

The result? Fire!

We were elated to say the least. We used 2 just to make sure the kindling caught, but still – we made fire! It was a glorious success. It burned bright and beautiful. We nearly danced and sang around it, like Tom Hanks in CastAway. We were so proud of ourselves, we had to celebrate.

S’mores, anyone?