Bath Bombs!

I was meaning to make & blog these before Christmas but that didn't happen.  These make a great Valentine gift to a friend or yourself.  Wikipedia - Bath Bombs (or BB's) shows the chemical formula, but the most interesting factoid is that they dissolve into water, carbon dioxide and salt.  I've been making these for awhile and play around with the recipe so no two batches are exactly the same.  The great thing is the base recipe is very forgiving.  In an hour I can make 3 batches if I don't do any soap grinding.

Words of caution:

• This is very fine powder and should not be inhaled. 
• When using essential oils, be sure to use oil to prevent skin irritation.  The oil acts as a carrier to help prevent skin irritation.  BB's are high in salt, your skin needs a bit of oil too.
• Don't be too generous with the oil, it makes the bathtub dangerously slippery.
• Be aware of other additives like sparkles, paper etc are hard on plumbing and make the tub no fun to clean afterward.  To avoid this I would recommend putting the BB into old pantyhose before dumping into the tub. That seems to be no fun though, who wants to bathe with pantyhose?  Better to skip using non dissolvable stuff.  Although, oatmeal would be great skin soothing bombs after sunburn or bug bites...  Hmmmm, Ideas brewing!
• If you choose to grind up smelly soap as the "extra,"  keep that grinder only for soap.  Better yet, buy a used one from a thrift shop for this purpose.  These supplies should never again be used for food.
• Do not use fragrance intended for room fresheners, your skin will thank you for skipping that experiment.
• The gloves keep your hands from drying out from the saltiness of the ingredients.

Base recipe:
1 part citric acid  (available at the health food store)
2 parts baking soda  (cheapest from the bulk bins at the grocery store)
1/16 part oil  (food or skin grade)

Useful Supplies:
bucket
rubber gloves
1/2 cup measure
cheap sandwich bags & twist ties
spray bottle filled with tap water
scarf or protective face mask

Aren't they pretty!

Not Housework Bath Bomb recipe:
1 cup citric acid
2 cups baking soda
1 cup epson salt
2 tablespoons almond oil
pick ONE variable from the list below

Variables:
a bunch of drops of essential oils
shredded glycerine soap
shredded perfume soap
bath pearls
bath confetti
soap leaves
soap flakes
sugar candy or chocolate
It's okay to try different oils: olive, canola, shea butter...
The spray bottle can have a mix of water/glycerine/rose water if you like but water works just as well.

Method:

1. Wear your gloves and mask.  Add to the bucket citric acid, baking soda, salt, and ONE variable you like.
2. Mix it together well with your gloved hands.
3. Add in the oil, and the essential oil if you are using, mix again.  (Picture below)
4. Spray about 3-6 times with water, watch it fizz too long and you will have less ingredients.  The water activates a chain reaction which can make the mix too wet too fast.  The spray bottle helps you control the moisture closer.  Quick now, mix it around. (picture below)
5. Repeat step 4.
6. Grab a clump of the mix and squeeze.  It should hold its shape easily.  If it doesn't, the mix is too dry and will not form into shape.  If its too dry, repeat step 4.  If the mix is too wet, enjoy the fizz, wait for it to slow down a bit and proceed to step 7.  Channeling Goldilocks here, not too much, not too little but juuuusssst right.
7. Measure out into bags.  They can be as big or as small as you like.  Half a cup of mix makes small BB's and seem a  bit stingy, but are perfect for a child's bath.  You're the creator!
8. Once all the mix is distributed and any left-over is dished out to the other bags, now is fun part.  Pick up a bag and squeeze it together into a ball.  Channel your inner child's snowball making days if you like!  Children can help out with this part too.  Tie them with twist ties or pretty ribbon if you prefer and set them aside overnight.  Or go use one right away if you like :)  I don't bother with cleaning out the bucket or washing the gloves or measure, it doesn't seem to affect the next batch.  Go ahead & clean them if you prefer.  I keep the supplies together in an old gift bag in the closet until the next time I make some.  (Picture below)

Dry mix with some fragile commercial butterfly bath fizzers broken up, see step 3.

Fizz after 3 sprays, see step 4

Attempting to add intact commercial bath fizzer to centre of BB, and how it looks after squeezing, see step 8.

I hope you enjoy this recipe!

cookie recipe swaps

I joined an online cookie recipe swap in progress on the cricut circle messageboard.  Here are my contributions.  The criteria was to use at least one cricut cut, the recipe, and a picture of the recipe.  I will post the recipes at the end.  Cricut & gypsy were used for both projects.  White paper is photocopy paper,which is light weight and acid free.  The  coloured papers are from a DCWV paper pack, "Tis the Season" I found on sale recently.  Click on any picture to enlarge.

The first one is 6"x6", I used "Church Windows" as my recipe.  I chose a window frame from Ornamental Iron cartridge, unlinked the dimensions to change them to 5.44"x5.22" They were "kiss cut" from wood grain Con-Tact paper.  Using the cricut tool kit "pick" I was able to weed out the waste from 2 frames in the time it took cricut to cut 4.  The large middle piece on the lower left of the picture is the centre of the frame and makes an excellent place to deposit all the little sticky bits.  Originally I was going to lay these on transparencies and colour in the windows with markers.  I realized being 6"x6" that would leave no room for the picture.  It occurred to me, the pictures would serve nicely in the window as colouring so I got busy with an exacto knife and scissors to cut the pictures to fill the frames.

Blogger and picassa aren't agreeing with me as to where I can insert text, sorry but I have no idea how to fix that.  This is the second recipe page, "Waffle Cookies," it is 8"x8".  I used Picturesque cartridge and unlinked the dimensions on the photo corner to become 2"x2" kiss cut them from silver Con-Tact paper and added 3 to each page.  That left a big gap in the upper right corner so I used Inkadinkado brand circle & dots clear acrylic stamp & pigment ink to make a pretty accent detail there.  That stamp set was a gift from a previous swap, I was so happy to finally use it!  I had trouble with the white ink not showing up on the pink, orange, and pale green "hohoho" paper so I switched to a dark brown as you can see in the below picture and it made all the difference visually.

As promised, here are the recipes.  The waffle cookies look like "space invaders" from that old atari video game so they would be great for a theme party too.  I have no reference for where the waffle cookeis recipe came from.  The Church windows recipe I adapted from the Steven & Chris TV show, but I found it was too sweet, so I use unsweetened coconut and it tastes just as addictive.

Waffle Cookies  (makes 12)
1/2 cup melted butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp salt

1. Mix together wet ingredients followed by dry ingredients. The batter will be thick.
2. Drop by tablespoon onto hot waffle grill.
3. Check cookies after one minute. Cook about 2-3 minutes.  When set remove from iron with a fork & cool on baking rack.
4. Frost with favorite icing; or using a small spoon drizzle with melted chocolate.

Melted Chocolate:  use 4 parts chocolate, 1 part vegetable oil, microwave in one minute increments, stir each minute to prevent burning.    Or use double boiler method.

Note: batter can be thinned with 1/2 cup milk or water if you desire thinner, more lacey looking cookies.  Measure about 1/4 cup batter per cookie.  You may need to adjust cooking time if you desire crunchy or soft cookies.

Makes 16-18 cookies.

Church Windows (makes 2 logs)

3/4 cup butterscotch chips

3/4 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

2 cups coloured mini marshmallows

1 cup unsweetened flaked coconut

In a medium sized bowl, melt together the first 4 ingredients in one minute increments in the microwave.  When completely blended, mix in flaked coconut and let cool to lukewarm.  Mix in marshmallows. 

Unroll 2 large pieces of parchment paper or wax paper, about 24” long.  Divide batter in half, dump half on paper, spread it out into a log. Match long paper edges together and roll down on itself to the log to roll it up to about 2” diameter, twist ends closed.  Repeat with remaining batter.  Put logs into the fridge, when completely chilled, slice as needed.