The Plaster of Paris Volcano Erupts!

This week seems to have been filled with craft fair prep and swimming lessons, but in the midst of that chaos (Last-minute shopping trips! Swimsuits still in the wash and we have to go! Do I have enough record bowls?) we made time for our latest and greatest obsesssion...

Volcanoes, baby!

Willow's desperate desire to create the plaster of Paris volcano (from a kit purchased at Goodwill for two dollars) using the plaster of Paris that we scored free at the Monroe County History Center garage sale one year was the premise behind my plaster of Paris tute over at Crafting a Green World last weekend. The numerous little plaster tchotchkes that Sydney and I created  during that tutorial went over far better than I anticipated (HINT: They make GREAT gifts), and the plaster of Paris volcano?

Clearly, it's awesome.

When the plaster was set the volcano was painted--

--it was nearly disaster time in Pompeii (We listened to Vacation Under the Volcano during our road trip).

We're not afraid of vinegar, so Sydney and I poured four teaspoons of baking soda into the volcano, put some food coloring into a quarter-cup of vinegar (I've also seen recipes that cut the vinegar with water or dishwashing soap, but like I said, we love ourselves some vinegar in this house), and, Sydney's choice of color notwithstanding (she chose purple), had ourselves a hell of an eruption:

Surprisingly, Will wasn't interested in participating in our morning eruption, but when we got home after swim class (flutter kicks and ice cream scoop arms for everyone!) she played out alone in the backyard for over an hour with the volcano, an entire gallon of vinegar, an entire box of baking soda, and a few assorted sundries.

Needless to say, cleaning up her activity entailed, in part, putting the completely empty bottle of vinegar and the completely empty box of baking soda in the recycling bins. Such is the low cost of awesomeness in science.