How to Get Emergency Lighting With Crayons

Have you seen this crayon hack all over the web? Setting it on fire to make light? Well, we tried it for you, and you do not have to wonder about it anymore.  PIN: Crayons

I’m sure you’ve all seen the emergency crayons light idea floating over Pinterest and Facebook at some point. We decided to test it out during one of our Preparedness Friday classes, and give you an idea of how it worked for us – and if it’s something you’d even want to do for you!

How to get Emergency Lighting with a Crayon- and is it even something you'd want to do? {Mom with a Prep}

How to get Emergency Lighting with a Crayon- and is it even something you'd want to do? {Mom with a Prep}

Instead, we should have just broken off the tip to get to the paper, but we didn’t. And it took a long while to finally get it to the point of lighting. (oh,..how much science we learned at this point!

Cool fact: Did you know that the ‘smoke’ coming off a blown out candle isn’t really smoke, but actually wax vapor cooling? seriously.

How to get Emergency Lighting with a Crayon- and is it even something you'd want to do? {Mom with a Prep}

How to get Emergency Lighting with a Crayon- and is it even something you'd want to do? {Mom with a Prep}

How to get Emergency Lighting with a Crayon- and is it even something you'd want to do? {Mom with a Prep}

Do you really want to make emergency lighting from crayons?

Here’s the point when we began to say..hm…do we really want this? The flame continued to get bigger and more out of control the longer it burned down the length of the candle. Now, had I thought about it, I might have run to get the hurricane lamp glass to put over this to see if it helped. But I didn’t. Would it have helped? Probably, but it wouldn’t necessarily have been any more stable.

The single crayon did actually throw off a lot of light in our room when we turned off the lights and shut the curtains. But I didn’t feel safe with it at all.

Now..the other issue is..bundling a few of these together, lighting them and using them as a torch. It could work for short term. However, you’d have hot wax melting everywhere, including on your fingers. Not necessarily something I’d want to do, but if I was caught, alone, with no provisions in a preschool classroom, grabbing a bunch of crayons for some lighting might be the thing to do. Just use the safety scissors to cut off the tips to save yourself some time, and hope that the teacher smokes and had a lighter or matches tucked up in her desk somewhere to use to light them. 🙂

After our experience, this is not something we’d want to rely on, nor will it be something we throw into our preps as a tool. We do happen to have a box of crayons and a small coloring book for someone in our secondary emergency box that we’d grab if we have time or room that has some gear that would be awesome to have but that is not necessary. Then we’d have a back up. But I don’t feel this is a safe way to light up a room at all.

Self Reliant Kids link at Mom with a PREP

Have you seen this crayon hack all over the web? Setting it on fire to make light? Well, we tried it for you, and you do not have to wonder about it anymore.  #hacks  #crayon

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Katy Willis is a writer, lifelong homesteader, and master herbalist, master gardener, and canine nutritionist. Katy is a preparedness expert and modern homesteader practicing everyday preparedness, sustainability, and a holistic lifestyle.

She knows how important it is to be prepared for whatever life throws at you, because you just never know what's coming. And preparedness helps you give your family the best chance to thrive in any situation.

Katy is passionate about living naturally, growing food, keeping livestock, foraging, and making and using herbal remedies. Katy is an experienced herbalist and a member of the CMA (Complementary Medical Association).

Her preparedness skills go beyond just being "ready", she's ready to survive the initial disaster, and thrive afterward, too. She grows 100% organic food on roughly 15 acres and raises goats, chickens, and ducks. She also lovingly tends her orchard, where she grows many different fruit trees. And, because she likes to know exactly what she's feeding her family, she's a seasoned from-scratch cook and gluten-free baker.

Katy teaches foraging and environmental education classes, too, including self-sufficient living, modern homesteading, seed saving, and organic vegetable gardening.

Katy helps others learn forgotten skills, including basic survival skills and self-reliance.

She's been published on sites such as MSN, Angi, Home Advisor, Family Handyman, Wealth of Geeks, Readers Digest, and more.

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