Nothing creates the aura of camping faster nor better than a real wood campfire. If you intend to have one on your next trip or Girl Camping sleepover, be sure you have....
....the means for getting a fire started, if not the wood itself! (Many campgrounds and nearby supermarkets sell bundles of campfire wood, but the dry kindling material and lighting device are generally up to you.)
You can buy parafin-based fire starters to help kindle up your fire, but you can make your own, too. Girl Camping Girl is in the process (above) of making some right now.
Supplies are paper cupcake liners plus tin; a bowl of wood shavings; a source of parafin that you'll melt; and a safe way to do the melting.
GCG uses an electric 'buffet warmer' with ceramic top, and puts her parafin pieces in a tin can with paper removed. A double boiler will work, too. Just be aware that parafin is highly flammable--the point of using it for a fire starter--and use low, slow heat that you supervise constantly.
You can use new parafin from the canning-goods section of a store, or...if you hoard candle-bits like GCG seems compelled to do, you can melt them down. Pour melted parafin over the shavings sprinkled at the bottom of each cup. (Use two liners per cup--they'll burn hotter than just one paper when you light it up.)
Top with another shavings sprinkle and tap down into melted wax with a spoon. Allow to cool and set, and you're in business--you have fire starters!
How they work:
**Set a 'muffin' beneath kindling sticks. Light the paper, which will ignite the top shavings layer, which will set off the highly flammable parafin, which will burn down to the bottom layer of shavings, which will help ignite the kindling sticks, which will then be hot enough to kindle your firewood.
Don't count on being able to pick up twigs and sticks for the rest of your kindling materials. If you can't bring chopped kindling pieces from home, include a hatchet in your camping tools. Then you can break up a piece of firewood to make kindling sticks on the spot.
