At one point, I walked past a display of decorative glass bowls, pictures and vases. One of them had what I thought to be round, glass beads, of the type they sell in little mesh bags in different colours. While looking at them, I stuck my finger in to kinda swish them around.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Well, imagine my surprise when, instead of hard glass, I found squishy, cold wetness! I looked around and saw something similar in another container, but these were randomly shaped pieces. I knew what those were - the sort of water absorbing crystals that can be used as a hydroponic growth medium. I'd only ever seen them as random shapes, never as marble-like spheres.
I knew I had to get some!
After some dedicated searching, I found the randomly shaped type. The crystals were rather larger and came in a bag that cost just under $10. Then I saw, tucked away on a hook just under the top shelf, these tiny little packages. Inside were these itty-bitty spheres. I was quite surprised, as the hydrated ones I'd seen on display were every bit as large as the crystal versions, but the dessicated crystals really weren't much smaller than the hydrated ones, while the spheres were smaller than the glass balls at the ends of my quilting pins.
They were also less than $2 apiece.
I resisted the urge to buy all four that were left on display and only bought two. One little .56 oz (16g) package is enough to absorb a full gallon of water!
By the time we got home, Dh and Youngest were already in bed, so I resisted the urge to put some in water right away. The next day, while I took Youngest to her voice lesson, Eldest got out a rose bowl I have and added about a teaspon of the dessicated spheres to 2 cups of water. That turned out to be too much water, so I later added another 1/4 to 1/2 tsp to absorb the excess. Then we added a couple of drops of green food coloring.
We keep sticking our fingers into the bowl and touching them. They feel so neat!
Here's an image of a fully hydrated sphere next to some that are almost straight from the package. In trying to get a good shot, they were already absorbing moisture from the one large sphere.
The cat hair I missed while we took the photos gives a bit of perspective as to the size. LOL
You can't tell in the photo, but the large one does have a green tint to it. By themselves, it's hard to see, but it's quite visible in a bowl full of them.
Of course, we were curious as to what was in these. Eldest had already given in to temptation and squished one. After taking this photo and adding the little ones to the bowl, I let Youngest use an Xacto knife to cut open the hydrated one. It was rather hard to cut into, because it was so squishy and slippery, but she managed. ;-)
You can clearly see the denser outer shell in this photo.
The spheres are 100% sodium polyacrylate, are non-toxic, and where marketed as "water jewels." They can be allowed to dry for re-use. While we've got them in a bowl as decoration right now, they can also be used for holding flowers, growing houseplants (I assume they'd need a nutrient fluid, rather than just water) or as candle holders.
After we cleaned up the cut pieces, we put a few more dry spheres into the tiny bowl I was using in this photo with just a few drops of water to watch them change. We let those sit overnight, then added a bit more water. Eventually, some red food colouring was added, along with enough water for them to fully hydrate. The few red ones have been added to the bowl of green ones. We were curious to see if the red food coloring would mix with the green from the others. So far, they seem to be keeping their colours to themselves.
Sometimes, it's the little things that are the most fun. :-)
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