One of our favourite TV shows is ‘Tumbleleaf‘ available on Amazon streaming. It’s a fun show with Fig the fox, Maple the bear and assorted other characters who make the world of Tumbleleaf so colourful and interesting. One episode focusses on Maple and Fig going on an adventure to find a dragon and when they reach the dragon’s lair, they are rewarded with a geode.
Egg shell geodes
Geodes were something I’d wanted to make with the toddler for a long time and the holidays were a perfect time to get mixing and colourful. First we made geodes in egg shells.
We found a recipe on Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls Facebook page with all the information we needed. Luckily I had some Epsom salts which I disolved in hot water. After carefuly pouring the salty water into the egg shells, we then added food colouring. Then came the tricky bit – waiting. I did explain to the toddler that we would need to wait overnight for the geodes to form but was informed we had to check fairly frequently ‘just in case’. We had some help from the pup in keeping an eye on them and she helpfully knocked them on to the floor for a closer inspection (managing to cover herself and the carpet in the process!). 
We had to frequently break the salt crust that formed on top of the geodes which also gave me a chance to push some of the salt to the edges. An evening on the radiator, and our geodes we’re ready! They weren’t quite like the ones the Smart Girls team made, but given half our salt water ended up on the dog and carpet, I was pleased we managed to create some geodes. The toddler was fascinated and this is a craft we’ll definitely do again, just firmly out of reach of the pup!
Bath bomb geodes
Our next experiment was bath bomb geodes. I’ve seen these on Pintrest a lot and it’s been on my list to make for a long time. We make bath bombs fairly frequently and I even posted my recipe on a previous Make It Monday. This time I didn’t add the Himalayan salt as I wanted the base of the bath bomb to be pure white to contrast with the geode colour.
I put a third of a cup of Epsom salts into four different bowls and added a few drops of food colouring. I keep meaning to buy proper soap colouring but have found food colouring works well and is a cost-effective option given how many bath bombs we go through. The only downside is that they can contain water which reacts with the bicarbonate of soda and citric acid, sometimes lessening the ‘bomb’ in the bath, but not by much.
Some of the colours weren’t as vibrant as I had hoped, with the black being particularly disappointing.
And here’s our first attempt at a geode bath bomb! The red turned more pink as it dried, whilst I didn’t bother to use the black as it really didn’t contrast well with the white bath bomb. I’ve seen other people make these so that the outer part of the geode is a lighter shade than the central part so it looks more like a rock but we were pleased with our results. Perhaps next time we’ll choose just one colour and make them look like ‘true’ geodes. The toddler loved playing with them in the bath and it’s was fun seeing the different colours mix as the bath bomb foamed. They were a bit fiddly but something we’ll be making lots more of it the future.
Have you ever made geodes?