Making Odor Absorbing Gel Container
OK, at this point we have a SUPER cheap smelly jelly set of instructions, and it makes incredibly cost effective smelly jelly. We're talking maybe 10 cents for an entire container. We had an old tupperware container lying around that was 1.7 pints - all it took was 1 tsp of jelly crystals and a few drops of odor and color, then water to fill it up. We were just going to donate the tupperware to charity because they were getting a little worn - but now they had a new purpose in life!
So Bob pulled out his drill, and began making little holes in the lid. You want holes so the aroma slowly diffuses out into the room. You don't want to leave the top completely open, because then dust will settle onto the jelly, and you don't really want dusty, dirty gel hanging around :) Plus it's sort of hard to wash little water-absorbing gel crystals :)
Most people use glass mason jars to hold these, since those are generally cheap. You can wash out pickle jars, peanut butter jars, or all sorts of random household containers to hold your smelly jelly.
You can of course do many other things to cover your container - use a rubber band or string to have a loose fabric top, have a metal top with perforated holes, put netting on it, etc. etc.
I think this is a hugely succesesful project. We now have three orange containers in the basement, two lavender containers up in the bedroom, and a lemon container in the living room. We can add water to them whenever they dry out. We still have most of the crystal container left - we barely dipped into it at all! The same is true for the aroma and color.
If we'd bought six Natural Magic containers, we'd be out $47.94 (plus tax). They'd only last three months. With this setup, we paid in $13.06 - and we still have enough raw materials left for let's say a hundred more. Which makes these cost about 13 cents each.
A must-do project for anybody! It takes maybe 10 minutes to make one! You can change your aromas daily!
NOTE: We did this with our natural well water, to see if it really gets moldy as some claim it will. Some people claim you need to use distilled water - i.e. water that has all impurities removed from it so it is completely pure. My counter to that is that by this water sitting out for months in our basement it's going to get impure just by being there, it doesn't matter how pure it starts out. Another common comment is that you should dump in a shot of vodka to help preserve it for the same reason - alcohol is a poison and would kill bacteria. If we see any problems, I'll probably start with the vodka idea first. I'll let you know!
Basic Information on Smelly Jelly
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