All About Homemade Camping Lanterns

People love to go camping for a variety of reasons and one of the biggest is they are often forced to become both creative and innovative while they are out in the woods. This side can often express itself in a variety of ways that includes,

• Finding uses for common household tools. For example, a pair of pliers cans be used to hold pots over a fire in a pinch
• Newspapers that can be used as extra blankets in your sleeping bags.
  
  

But the innovations don’t stop there. There are people who love the camping experience so much that they take the whole creative aspect one step further and create their own homemade camping lanterns. Of course there's nothing wrong with buying one of the more traditional ready to go lanterns that companies like Coleman make, and there are several types to choose from that include battery operated ones and those that run on gas.

There are several ways that you can fashion you own camping lanterns and most of these involve a little preparation work so that you don’t find yourself caught flat footed at the campsite as dusk approaches. First off, you'll find that old coffee cans that have been cleaned out and dried make great homemade camping lanterns when they're filled with paraffin and a wick is inserted at the top. Make sure that you bring the right supply of matches with you and remember that old prescription bottles make for great match covers.

Remember that innovation is the way to finding your own camping lanterns. Aluminum foil is another great article that you should keep around. When you've got that, you can even line an old cardboard box and pour the paraffin inside. Other ways of making a homemade camping lantern include,

• Making a mold from copper around a coffee can and punch holes in the sides so that a candle can sit inside and provide light without blowing out
• Purchasing one of the many conversion kits that are available to turn an oil camping lantern into an electric one.
  
  

Before you start out making a homemade camping lantern, there are a few things that you'll need to consider and one of the big issues that you might face is seasonal. If it rains a lot in the time that you plan on going, you'll want to consider fashioning a camping lantern that has some kind of lid or cover.