Here's a super-easy way to create an inexpensive replacement for a regular flashlight:

1. Purchase a regular flashlight at the dollar store. The kind that take two AA batteries work best. Take out the light bulb and throw it away.
2. Purchase a Radio Shack "Jumbo LED" and a pack of 47 ohm resistors.
3. Take the negative wire from the LED and bend it in a "U" so it passes up and alongside the body of the LED. (This will need to touch the side of the lightbulb socket.
4. Cut the positive LED lead short, perhaps 3/8". Take one of the 47 ohm resistors and cut one lead just as short, and wind the other one into a flat spiral. You should be able to stand the resistor upright on the wound up wire.
5. Solder the short resistor wire to the short LED wire. The whole LED and resistor combination should be no taller than the lightbulb you threw away.
6. Put the LED and resistor into the flashlight's lightbulb socket. The long LED wire should be bent so that it touches the metal on the outside of the socket, and the resistor should be in firm contact with the metal in the inside of the socket.
7. Reassemble the flashlight, add batteries and you're done! Total cost is less than $4.00.