Emergency Preparedness

Emergency Preparedness

>>> ~ Do it Yourself Emergency Candles ~<<<

This is the picture of the candles I wanted to make

that I saw on a Survival Blog that I follow:

www.teotwawkiblog.blogspot.com

Click on link above to see his original post.

As you can see, mine aren't as pretty, but I like them just the same!

So here is what my husband and I did.

• We went to amazon.com and bought the soy wax flakes and wicks that were recommended by the blog post.
• We then went to a local Goodwill Store and bought 2 old sauce pans (to make a double broiler). Do not use your own sauce pans that you use for cooking. Once you cook wax in the one pot, it's never going to be the same to eat out of it.
• An old spoon to stir the wax as it melts. It too will not be able to reuse for food use.
• You will need scissors for the wicks to cut to right size.
• Canning Jars. I just used the ones that I already have. I used 12 oz size wide-mouth. I highly recommend the wide-mouth jar. It will be better for pouring and creating candle but also when in use, lighting the wick when it gets close to bottom may be difficult if using a regular mouth size jar. Canning jars can be purchased at most grocery stores and WalMart or can be found on Amazon.com as well.
• I used Cupcake Liners for lids with canning rings. (Rubber bands could be used as well).
• Hot Pad Gloves that I already had for taking stuff out of oven. I used them for handling the pots and stirring. The wax will get hot and can burn you if it is exposed to skin.
• A pouring measuring cup, glass preferrably. Ours came from Goodwill as well, so it will not be reused with food.

Note: We saved all items that we bought from Goodwill for this project so we can make more. We would have kept on making candles but our bags of soy wax were all gone. Once you get going, they make real fast and easy.

Here is the link again to the website I got my information from. I send you here because he had awesome pics and directions for the actual process. Far more better than I could have done.

Click Here for step-by-step directions and photos.

The end product are now packed away for any emergency. They are suppose to yield 40-70 hours of burn time for an 8 oz jar. My jars are 12 oz. so I feel confident these will yield 70 hours or slightly more. At 4-5 hours a night using frugally, they should last approx 2 weeks. That math is the math on the top of my head. Use calcualtor for more accurate estimates.