Emergency Candles and Cleaning DVDs

While Jake and Amber (my brother and his wife) were here, Amber helped me with several projects from my "When I Have Time" list.  I finally had all the supplies for making emergency slow-burning candles, so I worked on that project while Amber moved all of the kids' toys from the living room up to their bedroom. That made such a difference!

 

I ordered this 10 lb bag of soy wax flakes from amazon.com. Soy wax has a slower burn than beeswax, so it lasts longer.

 

 

I created a double boiler by inserting one pot into another and filling the bottom one half full with water. Then I filled the top one with the wax flakes. Over medium heat, I melted the wax, stirring occasionally, until it was all liquid.

 

 

Then I used my liquid measuring cup to pour the wax into my pint sized canning jars.

 

I had 9" wicks with tabs and inserted those into the wax. I didn't get any wick positioners, because I thought surely the wicks stay in place once the wax is poured. No. It doesn't work that way. Don't know what I was thinking. But forks worked well enough.

 

Once the wax was cooled enough, I trimmed the wicks, and closed up the jars.

 

It only made 6, which was half of what I was expecting. When I rechecked the blog post I got the instructions from, he/she had used 8 oz jars and mine were 16. Here's the original post: http://teotwawkiblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/diy-survival-candles.html  The blogger said that an 8 oz candle claims to get 70 hours of burn time, but to reasonably expect 40-50. Since mine are double, they definitely should get over 70 hours of burning! And since I have more wicks, I might decide later to make a second batch to have the full dozen.

 

While we waited for the wax to cool, we cleaned the kids' DVDs. Since I couldn't remember which ones specifically were skipping, I had us clean them all. After an internet search, I decided to try kids' toothpaste. We put a dollop the size of my index fingernail on each disc, then swirled it in circles around the whole disc.

 

 

Like so.

 

Then you rinse that off under water and dry with a lint-free towel.  I don't have the results of our efforts to share yet, because shortly after this, a little person damaged the little people's travel DVD player, and we're still waiting for the replacement to arrive. But when it does, Horton Hears a Who will be the first one we watch, because I KNOW that one was skipping badly!