Create the campfire ambiance; completely designed to take you back to your favorite summer nights sitting around the crackling fire.
note: the more senses you can activate the more likely you’ll be able to whisk you and your friends to the mesmerizing land of campfire enchantment.
–Sight–
The fake fire can be recreated using the glowing logs with the rolling embers, but the most powerful and captivating part of the campfire is the dancing flames
Do it yourself
This dancing flame effect can be created by blowing white silk material into the air and shining a light on it with orange, yellow, and blue lights to create these flames.
If you remove the bottom of a large coffee can via can opener and mount a small computer type of fan in the middle area. Then attach an upside down v shape of silk to the top of the can. The fan can be purchased online through Amazon.
Find several small lights that can be focused into a dancing flame and can be colored orange and blue or yellow. You can purchase many different colors of “Gels” from your local theatre lighting rental company or find a local distributor at rosco’s website. Gels will provide you color and can be placed very close to your bulbs and can withstand heat very well.
Don’t forget you will need to have your fan can be elevated off the floor a couple of inches to allow air flow from the bottom. Hide all of this apparatus in the middle of split wood.
cub scout ceremony fire
This is a photo of our new campfire system (not my homemade one)
Note: I used this for a number of campfire re-creations at least 5-6 times, but the last one went a little longer than normal as our singing got carried away, and I noticed the burning wood smell was VERY realistic, that was when I jumped up and unplugged my homemade unit and decided that it was time to retire it for the safety of the kids around me. (This is a true story) I started looking for alternatives and found a safer, more realistic, and less hassle of a unit which was UL certified. When I discovered the price was barely more then I had in materials for my homemade campfire, I began to ask myself why I stressed myself out over when my homemade campfire would really burst into flames. IndoorCampfires.com carries a nice portable indoor campfire (1-888-638-1509)
Click here for a youtube video to see an artificial campfire in action
Crackling Fire Cd
–sound–
FREE: the best way to achieve the realistic campfire sounds is by borrowing a sound effects cd called “Crackling Fire” from your local public library.
For added realism, place a small computer speaker or mini speaker and portable cd player (walkman style) under the wood surrounding the campfire to play your crackling fire sounds.
No fire is complete without campfire songs:
–touch–
use real logs, sticky smores, and poison ivy (just seeing if you are still awake)
–smell–
FREE: in the room next door to your campfire, have a cookie tray with smores (Graham cracker, Hershey’s chocolate bar, and marshmallows) assembled and your oven pre-heated. Just place the smores in the oven to slowly bake and waft the smell across to the adjoining room. or pull the smores out and set them in the room near your campfire just as the lights go down and the fire starts up.
(You could always burn a few marshmallows for the smell of it.)
I found this amazingly realistic woodfire scent available from scent-air technologies to use with the indoor campfire. see their website for details.
Note: these campfires really work as a great prop to enhance scouting ceremonies that have to be held indoors.
–taste–
Now it is time to eat the smores you’ve been smelling (see above)