If you like to sit by your fireplace on a cold night but aren’t a fan of buying and storing a bunch of firewood, a pile of newspaper is all you need to stoke the flames of relaxation. You can transform loose papers into logs in a few simple steps.

Tactical Intelligence tells you how it’s done in a 2010 post. You start by soaking the newspaper in a sink or bucket, then draining the paper and laying it out leaf by leaf in a chain, with one end staggered over another. Next you take a dowel and use it to wrap up the wet newspaper until the log is as thick as you’d like. Pull out the dowel and the paper log will be ready to use once it’s dry.

The post says you’ll still need some small kindling to get the flames going, and you’ll probably need a couple regular logs to supplement your paper creations.

Homemade Firewood: How to Make Logs from Newspaper [Tactical Intelligence]

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