Miniature Fire Pit Made From Cement and a Tea Light

Looking to add a cozy, rustic touch to your indoor decor? I'll show you how to create a stunning mini fire pit tea light holder using a cement mold! This simple yet elegant project is perfect for adding a warm, flickering ambiance to your dorm, bedroom, or even your living room. With just a few basic materials and a little creativity, you can craft a beautiful centerpiece that mimics the charm of a real fire pit without the hassle.

1. Access to 3D printers for the mold
2. Portland cement, in our application we used ready mix cement. We use portland because of how fine the powder is and there is no large rocks in the mix.
3. Nuts and bolts (If you do the two part mold)
4. Tea light
5. Lighter
6. Some form of lubricant (We used vaseline)

We wanted to bring the cozy, fireside vibe indoors without the hassle of a real fire pit. Inspired by ethanol fire pits but aiming for simplicity, we used tea lights and designed it to look like a real fire pit. Perfect for adding warmth and charm to any space! We thought by using cement we can achieve this look and try out some new molding skills.

To design the cement mold we used Fusion 360. Firstly we built 3 different rock variants uses cubes and chamfering them in different ways to get a low polly rock. We could then arrange these to make what we thought the fire pit should look like. Now we have our desired fire pit! To get the mold part of it we subtracted the volume of the fire pit from a cube giving us the mold. We have two variants of this mold a single part one and a two part one. Lemme tell you the two part one is so much easier haha! We 3D printed these parts for the next step.

Since we used ready mix concrete cement the consistency of it was something similar to ice cream rather than a liquid. I believe the mold will work with either type drying times may very. Important! Make sure to have a releasing agent before you pour the cement. This will make the removal process much easier.

House hold releasing agents:

1. Vaseline (This is what we used)
2. Cooking spray
3. Water and dish soap

Place the mold in a dry place, for the cement to set the water must evaporate from it. We put our molds on top of a closet and let sit for 2-3 days.

To remove the cement from the molds it is very straight forward with the two part mold. First unscrew the nuts and remove the bolts, and then bam! Easy to remove each side of the mold. The one piece mold... that one was scary. To do this we used a rubber mallet to hammer the mold loose while clamping it in a vice. WEAR SAFETY GLASSES WHEN USING A MALLET! After a while of hammering it came out

You made it! insert the tea light and light it. Treat this as to how you would treat a candle do not leave it unattended. You can enhance the cozy campfire affect by bringing some mini marshmallows and tooth picks and roast some indoor marshmallows!