Oil candle wicks!

In light of what is going on in Japan I have been thinking more about emergency preparedness and what my family would do if the power was out for an extended period of time.  Anyways I came across these oil floaty candles on Hobbylobby.com.  (My local store does not sell them and I had to order them online.)  You take a small glass dish with water, add vegetable oil on top, and then add the plastic floater with wick....let the wick soak up the oil, and then light it.  From what I have read one bottle of vegetable oil is supposed to burn 1000 hours!  The wicks do not burn up as long as there is oil in the dish.  Once the oil is all used up the water will fill up the valley parts and smother the candle.  

The candle gives off as much light as a votive candle.  So, just enough light to keep you from stubbing your toe.  Or if you light a couple it could be romantic.

 I put a 1/4" of an inch of oil in this dish.  I have read that 1" of oil in a wine glass will burn for 3 hours. I TRIED to test the burn time last night but every time a little kiddo would walk by my candle they would blow it out!  Moral of this lesson.....make sure you stock up on plenty of matches!  LOL!

 You get 100 wicks in this package and 3 plastic floaters.  Enough to put some light in three rooms in the house for the evening.  The wicks were $1.99 and the shipping and handling was $6.  I ordered 6 packages so it came out to $3 a package basically.  To me that sounded like a pretty good deal to have on hand in case of an emergency and the power going out.  I know some will say "Oh, that will never happen!"  Well, I live in Ohio, far away from most earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etc....but last year Hurricane Ike came so far in that it knocked out power for a LOT of people and my neighbor, who is on a different electric line, was with out power for an ENTIRE WEEK!  Ok, I cannot imagine that with 6 kids!  So whatever I can do to make the "WHAT IF'S" more comfortable for my family I will try my best to do it.  And $3 for a pack of these candle wicks fit in my modest family budget.

And no, I did not receive any compensation for plugging these little things!  Darn! LOL!