Becca Groves Header
 photo home_zps1cc7d3c8.png photo start_zpsa2c6c1a1.png photo motherhood_zps5b7bd8a5.png photo grovestead_zpsa872b0de.png  photo bees_zps9cbb22f2.png  photo contact_zps6de91cd9.png

Fizzy Bath Bombs

A while back I found this awesome tutorial on Little Birdie Secrets. I love this blog...three crafty friends who do cool things together. How fun is that?!! The site is full of inspiring and thoughtful projects to tackle and I have many bookmarked that I want to try. So, anyway, I found this tutorial, and later my co-worker, Casey, and I decided to host a Women's Christmas Craft night at Carol Joy Holling. The hope was to get a bunch of crafty-types in a room for a night of food, creating and childcare done by camp counselors. Genius. So this Friday night we have 20 women coming to make three different projects, one of which is the Fizzy Bath Bomb. Today I did a trial run of this project and basically decided that I have the best job in the world.

First I gathered all of the supplies. This was the hardest part of the entire process. I had to track down five cups of citric acid. And figure out what witch hazel was (it's not a vitamin, so don't waste your time looking in the vitamin section in countless stores across omaha...just head over to your local walgreens and go to their face wash section. who knew?!! not me, obviously.) But once I gathered all of the ingredients it was a pretty simple process. I told Rory that by the time the ladies actually come and do the crafts, it will only take them 10 minutes because the prep work has already been done for hours, and if I were really honest, days. It reminds me of watching someone on a cooking show and they say, "simply toss your chopped vegetables in the pan" and you think to yourself, 'well who chopped those vegetables?!! All recipes would be easy and simple if your ingredients were premeasured and ready to dump into your pot!' Basically, this is what I have done for craft night.
So from there it was a pretty straight forward process...mixed the dry ingredients first and then added the oil and coloring. Apparently the citric acid and baking soda are the two things that really make these babies fizz. Again, if you want the actual instructions with step-by-step pictures, click here for great easy to follow directions from Little Birdie Secrets.
Adding the witch hazel was maybe the trickiest part, but it would be hard to screw this up, so I use the word tricky quite loosely. The key is that you don't want to ever saturate your dry ingredients or it will activate the fizz prematurely. So you spray on the witch hazel until the mixture clumps easily in your hand.

Then I packed the mixture into the cupcake cups seen below. The stuff hardens really fast, so I filled them fast. I plan on making mostly cupcakes, but wanted to try the actual "bomb" like you would purchase at LUSH.

For the cupcakes, I made a lotion frosting to go on top. It actually is a pound of powdered sugar, meringue powder and cream of tartar. I was sort of weirded out about bathing in powdered sugar until I realized that lots of people use sugar scrubs, so it can't be that horrible for you.

It stiffened up really quickly, so we filled the icing bag fast and decorated our fizzy bath cupcakes. This is my friend, Gina, who showed serious skill in her use of the piping bag. Very impressive, Gina.

They hardened up within two hours. Hard as rocks, actually. I was still curious how they would react in the water, unsure if I had done everything exactly right. So we tested one. I can't explain how thrilled and relieved I was that it worked, because I have been promoting this entire event based on these things, raving about how cool they are when they fizz up, while thinking, "Lord, please let them fizz up!" Not only did it work...but it fizzed like a hottub jet shooting up out of the water. Well, I mean, like the little spits of water that shoot up from a hottub jet. Not really like a gushing fountain. I'm just trying to say the fizz was impressive!

We wrapped them up and are all set for Friday night. If you're in the Omaha area and want to come, drop me a line. We'd love to have you!

5 comments:

annika said...

Adorable! Great documentatino of the process. I wish I could come! The true test will be when you are actually in the bathtub soaking with the bath bomb cupcake. I suggest having a chocolate cupcake to eat while soaking in the tub. Bliss.

Kristin said...

fun!! Can we try these out at the farm over Christmas??!! ;) Big bath party in Mary's tub? ;) Great job and it looks fantastic-I love Lush. Let me know when you open your store.

Becca Groves said...

Annika, a chocolate cupcake would make these bombs perfection. I actually thought about putting a wrapped chocolate on the top of the frosting before it hardened...so there would be a little treat for the tub. But then I feared it might just end up tasting like soap or something...

We'll make these in Minnesota over Christmas for sure.

Becca Groves said...

Kristin! I'm game for trying them at the farm...we could fit it in between acting out the nativity and dance dance revolution.

I'M SO EXCITED to see you and the kids! It was so great seeing Daron and Fia at Ida's baptism. Yeah for Christmas!

Lisa Groves said...

I can't believe it! I have had the shopping list for these with me for two weeks! No one at Michaels knew what I was talking about the sulfate, then called a hobby store and they were clueless. I wanted to make these for Tea table gifts. Can we do a craft day at our house too? I will try to gather the stuff soon!maybe borrow the big cupcake pan??