I spilled a little bit of candle wax on my Bitcoin private key and now it won't scan electronically what can I do? I need help. What can I do to still use my paper key?
You can make a manual copy of the QR code. Get out a sheet of graph paper, a #2 pencil, and start copying the grid from the QR code. Count the number of rows, and make sure your graph paper is large enough. Each square in the QR code should be either entirely filled in or entirely blank. As long as each square in the QR code is legible to you, you can make a clean version.

You don't need to get every square correct - QR codes have an error correction code.