I thought I'd give you guys kind of a candle tip

[heavyporker]

 I recently browsed a local dollar store (basically, a store where all items are a dollar or less. Mainly knick-knacky toys, snacks, crafts, supplies). Among the items I came across were these "flameless tealight candles". I was intrigued and bought one pack.

 The break down is: the pack contains a pair of what appears to be yellow L.E.D. votive-sized lights. A simple twist turns it on, and can be twisted off. The flickering is a nice touch, if you aren't looking directly at the "candle", you could be convinced the ambiance was from a real burning-wick candle! The brightness is surprising - I really liked that part. The packaging mentions what type of battery the lights contains, which leads to me to think it *might* be possible to replace the batteries when they run down.

 The reason why I am bringing these things up is that I noticed the growing prevalence of mini-lanterns of glass and/or brass upon costuming or props. I can clearly see that burning-wick candles would be something of a hazard in these situations! The flameless tealights I saw appears to be a wonderful compromise if you want to go around with full luminescence!

 If I ever got a steampunk costume of my own with mini-lanterns, I can confidently say I'll employ these lights. They have the potential for handiness!

[cptn. C]

what is the name of the dollar emporium that you bought the candles

[steampunk22]

YOu can get them just about anywhere, walmart, etc

[Armored Rah]

Lowe's had a six pack of rechargable candles like this for $5. They were on clearance sale, down from $30. THey came with a charger that lets you charge any number of them at a time. They look real enough and have complete charging circuits and NiMh batteries. The package said they would run 15 hours on a charge. Mine lasted over 3 days on the first charge. I bought them for projects, but after seeing how nice they were, I decided to use them like this for now.

[JingleJoe]

You took this straight out of my mind didn't you Mr Porker?

There is a simple circuit inside each of those false tea lights which makes the LED flicker like that, breaking open the plastic will reveal it then modification and insertion into other contraptions should be elementary

[Tara]

I love these.  They don't look at all convincing just by themselves or in clear glass, but inside a tinted holder (I use orange and red ones sized for votives) they look fantastic.  We used them at work when we were trying to get a 'cabaret' feel without security getting on our case about open flames.