power outages – Super Prepper

You're having a peaceful night at home when suddenly the power goes out. You want to save your flashlight's battery, and you don't have any professional grade emergency candles lying around. If only you knew a few different techniques for quickly making homemade emergency candles, then you'd be set! Knowing a few creative ways to provide your family with light during a long-term emergency situation can be an incredibly valuable tool. After all, we are all a lot more vulnerable to major disasters than we might think. Even if you stock candles for an emergency, you'll eventually run out and need some alternatives. 6 Best Homemade Emergency Candles Name Burn Time Materials Needed The Crayon Candle 2-3 Hours Crayon The Tin Can Candle Varies Cardboard, aluminum can The Butter Candle 4 Hours Butter, toilet paper The Vaseline Candle Varies Vaseline, paper The Orange Peel Candle 6-8 Hours Orange, olive oil The 100 Hour Candle 100 Hours Crisco shortening, taper candle, mason jar The Crayon Candle Approximate Burn Time: 2 - 3 Hours If you have kids, you know the feeling of scrounging around for a pen or pencil and finding nothing but crayons. Luckily, having practice hunting down crayons isn't utterly useless if you're in need of short-term lighting. A crayon is basically the reverse of a store bought candle! Instead of the wick being in the center with wax around the outside, you have the paper wick around the outside with wax in the middle! The beauty of a crayon candle is that there isn't much prep work to be done. Crayons are almost candles ready to light! What You Need: 1 Crayon Instructions: Cut the tip of the crayon off at the top of the wrapper. It should now be just a stick of wax wrapped in a paper wrapper.Hold a flame over the top of the crayon. Once the wrapper catches, a single crayon will burn for about fifteen minutes. Tip: To get the crayon to stay upright while it burns, heat the bottom of the crayon and push it down onto a hard surface (like a dinner plate). This will cause the wax at the bottom to squish out and create a great candle stand! Most crayons have a bottom portion where the wrapper stops and there is about a quarter inch or so that is only wax. This is the part you want to melt and use as your candle stand. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryuy05_ESaw The Tin Can Candle Approximate Burn Time: Varies based on size This type of homemade candle is good at putting out light great as a mini stove or a even space heater to warm up a small room. If you live in an area that has very cold winters, this is a great type of candle to know how to make. It could keep your family warm in the dead of winter. The only catch here is you do need a source of wax to make these. Consider buying a bucket of bulk wax to keep in your emergency stores just in case. If that's not an option, then you can use remnants of used candles or crayons melted down. What You Need: Cardboard1 Aluminum can Instructions: Cut long strips of corrugated cardboard about as thick as the can is tall that you will be using.Coil the cardboard pieces tightly inside a tin can, preferably a flat tuna can.Pour melted wax over the cardboard.Take another short strip of cardboard and insert it into the middle of the coiled cardboard, this will be the wick. Light the "wick" cardboard so it catches the rest of the candle on fire. These candles put out a large flame with plenty of heat and very little smoke. That is why they are best used as a mini stove or a small heater. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPf688RFatI The Butter Candle Approximate Burn Time: 4 Hours These candles are simple to make and should burn for about four hours! All you need it toilet paper for the wick and a stick of butter. This will make a small flame that is comparable to a store bought candle's flame. What You Need: 1 stick of butterToilet paper Instructions: Cut a standard four ounce stick of butter in half so you have two separate two ounce squares.Take a square of toilet paper and cut it into quarters. You will use one of these quarters for the candle's wick, folding it diagonally and twisting it into a strand. Fold some of it over on itself, creating a fishhook shape. Ensure the wick if about a quarter inch longer than the butter is tall.Bore a hole through the center of the butter with a thin implement like a skewer or toothpick.Push the wick into the hole by the hook.Roll the exposed part of the wick around in the butter and light your candle. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge1O9rH__5Y&feature=youtu.be The Vaseline Candle Approximate Burn Time: Varies based on size Vaseline produces one of the brightest flames of any candle I've ever made. The person in this video used the original Vaseline container, but note that you may need to use a different container if the one you have isn't suitable for fire. How long it burns will depend on how much Vaseline you are using. Vaseline is a great item to have stocked in your emergency supplies. It has a million uses! What You Need: VaselinePaper Instructions: Tightly roll a piece of paper into a thin wick that is about a quarter inch longer than the container of Vaseline is tall.Dip your new paper wick in Vaseline so that the end is now packed full of Vaseline. Then turn it over and push it down into the middle of your Vaseline container and light. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtiBVet4ZFg The Orange Peel Candle Approximate Burn Time: 6 - 8 Hours If you're in need of a small tealight-style candle, you can create one using only an orange (or any other citrus fruit) and some oil. These take a little patience to construct, but once made they will last a very long time. Unlike the other candles on this list that rely on wax or petroleum jelly, this one runs off olive oil! That means that as the oil gets low you can add more to extend it's life. The wick wont last forever though, so you wont be able to just keep adding oil indefinitely. What You Need: 1 orangeOlive oil Instructions: Cut around the circumference of the orange, taking care to only cut through peel and not the fruit.Carefully remove the peel from the bottom half of the orange, taking the pith (long white part) out with it. It should still be attached and look like a white stem sticking straight up from the inside bottom of the peal you just removed.Fill the little orange peel bowl with some olive oil, soaking the pith as you go. Let it soak for a few minutes, and light the top of the pith like a wick. Note that it may be a little difficult getting the pith to light initially. This is normal. Holding a flame to it for around 30 seconds or so should get it to light. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YJgdOFYtj8 The 100-Hour Candle Approximate Burn Time: 100 Hours If you were a youngin' back in the 1600's when courting candles were popular, you would've killed to get your hands on this recipe! That's because the tradition for back then was that your date with the woman you were courting was over when the candle burned out. Ok, maybe you aren't courting someone in the 1600's, but maybe you know it's going to be a dark few days. You can make this candle that will last 100 hours. That's over four days! These are also very cheap, relatively easy to make, and they really do burn that long. What You Need: Crisco shortening1 taper candle1 mason jar (or other suitable container) Instructions: Pack the mason jar with shortening to a height about one inch shorter than the height of your taper candle. Ensure you pack the shortening in tightly so that there are no air bubbles.Insert your taper candle into the middle of the shortening, pushing it down to the bottom. Light and enjoy! If you want a more visibly appealing result and a better way to make sure there are no air bubbles in the shortening at the same time, you could melt the shortening. Just heat it up in a pot until it's liquid, and pour it into the mason jar. Once it cools and hardens, push your taper candle in and you're done! Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNxj8Mg0BYk Options for Making Wicks Surviving an emergency is all about creatively handling situations, and candle making allows a lot of room for creativity. There are only two necessary parts for making a candle: the wick and the wax. Candle wicks can be made from the following items. Cotton string - Raiding the sewing closet might not be the worst idea during an emergency, as a cotton string makes an excellent wick for homemade candles.Cotton ball - To make a candle wick from a cotton ball, all you need to do is soak it in oil or another flammable substance and roll it between your hands. It will ignite very easily!Toilet paper - When rolled up, toilet paper holds flammable substances well and ignites quickly. Cardboard - Cardboard is a lifesaver when it comes to burning emergency candles because the corrugated shape will hold more wax to burn even though it's not as absorbent as cotton.Tampons - These little troopers can be transformed into many survival tools, but the fact that they are made of cotton and string is beneficial in making candles! If you soak the tampon in oil and light the string, it will give a small flame, which is best suited for starting fires. Now you know a few different ways to make homemade emergency candles, depending on the materials available to you. Remember that learning ways to improvise in any situation is what will save your life. A true prepper never stops learning! Do you have any recipes or tricks for homemade emergency candles? Have you used any of the methods shared today? Share that with fellow preppers down in the comments section!