Zombiepocalypse Crafts: Flammable Gel

Hello my friends!  I hope you are enjoying your lovely lanters.  Well, if you were unlucky enough to not have candles, I have a recipie for you that will help you light your way, keep you warm (ok, not really) or help cook some of that food you might have.

On your next recon or scouting patrol, hit up the local drug store and pillage, er I mean, aquire the following ingredients:

• antacid tablets - must contain at least 1000 mg calcium carbonate per tablet
• vinegar (weak acetic acid)
• isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) - 90% or higher is recommended* (70% isopropyl alcohol will work, but you will need to allow let the mixture from step 3 evaporate until it is a little more concentrated to make up for the extra water in the alcohol. )

Prepare the Flaming Gel

1. Crush 5 antacid tablets into a powder.
2. Stir 50 ml (~10 tsp) of vinegar into the powder (10 ml per tablet) to make a slurry.
3. Allow the slurry to evaporate until it is less than half its original volume. This could take about a day. If you accidentally evaporate all of the water, you can reconstitute the slurry by stirring in a small amount of water.
4. Fill a container with about 2x the volume of however much antacid slurry you have at this point.
5. While stirring, slowly add slurry to the alcohol to form a thickened gel. Do this slowly: If you add too much slurry, the mixture will liquefy and you won't get a gel. So, once you have a gel, don't add any more of the calcium tablet slurry mixture.
6. Place the gel into an airtight container for future use. 
7. Scoop up a ball of the gel and ignite it.

That's it for today kids.  Stay tuned for the next exciting craft!!!

(If there is anything you would like to see in future posts, feel free to suggest!!!)

Shot through the heart and you're to blame... (a special dedication)

So, here we are upon another holiday.  Guess what????  Yup it's that time again.  HISTORY LESSON!!!!  This one is dedicated to Ali.  :)  You know you love it.  Get it...day about love and I said you loved it?  No?  Not Funny?  Sorry - Don't slap me.

I get why so many people despise Valentine's Day.  I do.  Really.  I promise.  When one stops to think about it, the holiday is really a consumeristic idea of what love is supposed to be.  Valentine's Day is now a multi-BILLION dollar money maker for florists, candy makers, card makers, jewelry stores and anyone else trying to cash in on the holiday.  Who didn't go to the stores looking for that after Christmas bargain only to be confronted by pink and red hearts everywhere?  (OK, in reality, I don't mind so much because I adore the Russell Stover raspberry creme hearts.....mmmmm).  Florists in the US sell about 198 million red roses on V-Day.  This boosts the bottom line for the florists where this one day alone constitues approximately 25% of their annual revenue.  Candy sales for V-Day ranks fourth on the list of holidays behind Halloween, Easter, and Christmas.  As for Holiday Card sales - well that is second on the list *just* behind Christmas cards.

There really isn't any solid information of the origins of Valentine's Day.  But there is general consensus.  One legend credits the creation of V-Day to the holiday the ancient Romans celebrated known as  festival of Lupercalis/Lupercalia.  This festival is a fertility celebration that was observed annually on February 15. But the rise of Christianity in Europe saw many pagan holidays being renamed for and dedicated to the early Christian martyrs. Lupercalia didn't escape unscathed. In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius turned Lupercalia into a Christian feast day. He proclaimed February 14 to be the feast day in honor of Saint Valentine, a Roman martyr who lived in the 3rd century and was martyred on February 14th. 

So who was this Valentine dude and why was he martyred?  Well, let me tell you (because if I had a Delorean and a Flux Capacitor, we'd be taking a field trip).  DISCLAIMER:  The Catholic Church officially recognizes three saints that were all martyred named Valentine or Valentinus, so we are just going to go with the one that lived in the time of Claudius, K?  Good.

Imagine you are in the Roman Empire... life is good and you are conquering the world.  Ok, maybe not YOU, but you get me, right?  Well, like all good things, it must end, and the end of the Roman Empire is near.  The Empire grew too large for the soldiers of the Empire to defend.   Because of this, Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.  How very Friar Lawrence from Verona of him. 

Since no one can really keep a secret, it wasn't long before "the friend of lovers" was discovered and Claudius II had him arrested.  While awaiting his sentence in prison, Valentine was approached by his jailor, Asterius. It was said that Valentine had some saintly abilities and one of them granted him the power to heal people.  Here the story varies wildly by faith.  Catholics believe that Valentine restored the sight of Asterius' daughter, while the Protestant refute this fact.  Anyhoo, whatever happened there, a strong friendship formed between Valentine and his jailors daughter.  It is said that just before his execution, Valentine asked for a pen and paper from his jailor, and signed a farewell message to her "From Your Valentine."  The phrase that will live in infamy and tourture the lonely hearts club.

In 1916, Lily Hardy Hammond wrote, "You don't pay love back; you pay it forward."  In the Garden of Delight (p. 209).  Wise words.  I think this year we should start a new trend for Valentine's Day.  Instead of using the day to tell the person (or people) that are close to you that you love them - something you should be doing everyday anyway - and showering them with gifts for no apparent reason really, why don't we pay the love we get forward?

It's easy to do.  We all know someone who has suffered a loss of some sort over the last year or so.  Why don't we reach out to them?  Fork over that dollar to the unfortunate soul on the corner.  Smile at someone who looks like they are having a rough day.  We are all fortunate in our own way to have love in our lives...let's pass it on to someone who doesn't or has forgotten.

So with that being said, to all of you who took some time out of their day to read my ramblings, I love you and appreciate you all for being in my life.

Zombiepocalypse Crafts: Romantic Lanterns

Beans in a can.  Somehow I can see that as being a staple when the Zombiepocalypse hits.  Eh, it's sustinance, right?  Well, when the end of the world as we know it comes to an end, we don't want to be wasteful, now do we?  Well, you're in luck.  I have a little something that will pass the time a bit and create some ambiance in your base camp.  This is a perfect project for Valentine's Day since the weather, in what seems to be the entire country nowadays, gets to be pretty chilly.

Ok, on to the how to:

1. Have a hearty meal consisting of baked beans, canned corn, soup, fruit salad, or anything else that comes in a can that you managed to scrounge up in one of your recon patrols. 
2. Wash the can thoroughly to remove the label and any food residue. We are going for funky looking, not funky smelling.  And besides, the jury is still out on whether the walking dead are attracted to the smell of cooking and/or rotting food.
3. Now for the cool part - fill the can with water and put it somewhere super cold until the water is frozen solid.  This isn't totally necessary, but it makes it a ton easier to punch holes in the can and it keeps the can from crushing down.
4. OK, you’ve waited out the freezing, now it’s time to get to work. And time is of the essence, ‘cause you don’t want to let the ice melt! Take the can out of the freezer and use the crayon or Sharpie or whatever you happen to have, and map out your design using dots. Flower patterns, Hearts, Random Dots or even Pac-Man are good designs to try. Try to center the mid-point of your design between the top and bottom of the can. The dots you draw will become holes where the candlelight will shine through, so try not to plan too few or too many (remember the light attracts zombies).
5. Position your crossbow bolt over the dot and punch a hole in the can.  Oh, you don't have a crossbow?  Well, if you don't have a crossbow handy, you can use a nail and hammer.  Center the nail on a point in your pattern, grab the hammer, and pound out a hole.
6. Continue the poking/hammering process until you’ve poked holes in each spot, and then put the can somewhere out of the way, like a sink to thaw. Or bust it out of the can and make a nice margarita on the rocks.
7. Once the ice is gone and the can is dry, you’re ready to add a candle. Candle choice depends on can size and what you happen to have handy.  Tea Light candles works well in most standard vegetable cans. Experiment a little. If you can't figure out how to make this work, then you have no chance of survival.  If you don't happen to have any candles laying around, use flamable gel.  That my friends will be our next tutorial.  Just know where the closest drug store is to scrounge for materials for that little project. 
8. Now all that’s left is to strategically place your new lanters in corners and around the room to cast a lovely pattern of lights in your hideout.

Ok friends, until next time, be safe and keep your head down!