Jacquard Alum 1lb Pkg for Marbling

I purchased the alum powder to make colorful geodes for Easter and the results were spectacular! This is a very easy and fun project to do at home and the results are very beautiful and dazzling. Just google the words "Martha Stewart" and "DIY Geodes" or type in "DIY Geodes" in YouTube for more details.At first, I used the alum powder sold at my local grocery store (in the spices section). However I was not very happy with the results. The crystals that formed were very small and did not dazzle very much under the lights. It did not have that "wow" factor. Jacquard's alum powder produced superior results and is cheaper if you are planning on making multiple large geodes. The grocery store product was 1oz and cost me $2 vs. $8+ for 1lb (16oz) of Jacquard.My recipe for making the geodes was as follows (Credit to YouTuber Ann Le (Anneorshine) for the Polymer Clay Idea):Base: Make a polymer clay base by molding some Sculpy or Premo into the shape of a geode cup. You can mix different color to get a more marbelized look. Bake per package instructions. Once geode cups are cool, brush on some clear glue (I used Elmer's clear glue) and while the glue is still wet sprinkle in some glitter. The larger the pieces of glitter the larger the crystals that form. Dry overnight. After base is dry, brush off excess glitter that has not adhered.If you do not have glitter, you can just use some alum powder. If you don't want to go through the glue steps, you can also use some sandpaper to give a rough texture to the inside of your polymer clay cups. Basically you want a nook and cranny texture for the crystals to adhere to and grow out from.Crystals: Dissolve 1/4 cup of alum powder to 1 cup of boiling hot water. Add 30-40 drops of food coloring. Stir until alum powder is completely dissolved -- this is very important. Let the mixture cool slightly -- 2 to 3 minutes. Place prepared geode cups into the mixture. Set aside in a place that will not be disturbed for 2 days.I find the ratio of 1/4 cup of alum to 1 cup of water to work well for me. You can add more alum powder but I would not use any less. I was able to make 8 large geodes (3-4 inches in diameter each) and still have 3/4 cup of alum powder left over for future projects.I have attached some photos to this review. Hopefully you can see the difference in crystal size of the Jacquard vs. the Grocery store product. Also please note that the large crystal rock took 7 days to make -- every two days the crystal was removed from the water, more alum powder was added to the water mix, heated, and dissolved. And after the water cooled the crystal was put back in.

Used for tanning hides. For a novice it works great.

We used this in my daughter's science fair experiment for growing crystals. ...and it did a remarkably good job at that!Alum is one of the easier crystals to grow, especially if your child wait until the last minute. A lot of crystals take 4-6 weeks. But with alum, you can get *something* within 1-2 weeks. The key is to get a good, supersaturated solution. i.e. boil that water, spoon the alum in, reheat the water if you have to, and keep going until the water can not dissolve any more alum. You will have seed crystals forming within hours. Pick out a good one, tie to some fishing line, and then hang it in the solution. Discard anything else that may be growing. You do not want it to compete with your seed. This is a bit of a rushed approach and you will probably not get the classic octahedron that you may see on the internet. But you will still get something that your child can learn from.Attached below is what we grew. You will notice kind of a pinkish tint to ours. We had food coloring in our solution. We naively thought we might get something like a ruby. But what we learned is that the alum tends to stay with just itself and kick the food coloring out (for the most part). Even though it was very irregular, you can still see how it tried to form triangular shapes. Very, very cool!

I use this product to may playdough for my son's preschool. It says it arrives as a powder, but it really looks like small ground crystalline particles...about the size of table salt. If you are using this for playdough, add this to your warm liquid first to ensure it dissolves. If you pre-mix the alum with the flour, and then add the liquid the alum tends to drop out and form crystals...or it happened with at least two batches of my playdough. Add it to warm water and it will dissolve producing wonderfully smooth play dough with antimicrobial properties. ;-)