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!

There was a small hole in the crease of the bag, and a tiny amount of the alum came out. Overall, just what I needed and I still have basically the whole bag worth of crystals.

I got this to tan a deer hide. Alum is used in the tanning of animal hides to remove moisture, prevent rotting, and produce a type of leather. Traditionally treating hides with alum, instead of tannic acid, is called tawing and not tanning. The product is traditionally called parchment instead of leather.Tanning hide into leather involves a process which permanently alters the protein structure of skin. Tanning can be performed with either vegetable or mineral methods. I prefer alum, it is easier to apply than the traditional method.. Before tanning, the skins are unhaired, degreased, desalted and soaked in water over a period of 6 hours to 4 days. I generally go for 4 days, you'll have a cleaner hide. Alum just gives a softer hide after everything is done. They're more like the blanket hides that you see in an old western.This alum dissolves really well. It was a good price. It was really hard to find anywhere in local stores. I was glad Amazon had it so cheap and could get it to the house so fast.STEP ONESkin the deer and bone out the tail. Scrape every particle of fat and flesh from the hide with a knife. Begin the tanning process or preserve it with a generous layer of non-iodized salt. Salted hides can be air dried until the onset of warm weather, or frozen.STEP TWOSoak the skin in water in a plastic garbage can until it softens, changing the water often. Drain, then pull the skin back and forth across the edge of a board. Scrape it with the back edge of a knife or an old hacksaw blade with dull teeth. Do not expose the hair roots.STEP THREEDissolve 2 ½ pounds of salt in 4 gallons of water in the garbage can. In a plastic bucket, dissolve 1 pound of alum in a gallon of water. Slowly pour the alum solution into the garbage can, mixing thoroughly. Soak the skin for four days, occasionally stirring to make sure the hide is well coated. Rinse thoroughly with running water.STEP FOURTack the hide, hair side down, to a piece of plywood. Partially dry it in a sunless place, then rub in a coat of fat liquor oil (3 ½ ounces of neat's-foot oil combined with 3 ½ ounces of warm water and 1 ounce of ammonia). Work in half of this mixture, allow it to stand for an hour, then repeat. Cover with plastic overnight.STEP FIVERemove the tacks, dampen the hide with a wet cloth, stretch it, then rub it back and forth over a sawhorse. Redampen it and repeat, applying additional fat liquor sparingly. When the hide is perfectly supple, smooth the surface by chafing it with fine-grit sandpaper.

I re-homed in a glass jar for better keeping. Worked as expected.

I bought this fir my granddaughter to do some eco printing on cotton fabric. We used flowers from our yard. Followed the directions and it turned out beautiful.