Whats better than water Balloons... Sponge Balls!!!

Every summer we make a large batch of sponge balls for the kids to enjoy in stead of water balloons. We do this for several reasons. Once made they can be enjoyed all summer if taken care of properly. The clean up is real easy since there aren't any little rubber balloon pieced to hunt for and pick up. The set up is also really easy. It takes under 2 minutes to make 1 sponge ball. We usually make around 40 sponge balls every summer. Once the sponge balls are made we split them into four 5 gallon buckets filled with water strategically placed around our yard. The kids grab the sponges and start attacking each other. After a couple of throws when the sponges aren't as saturated with water, the kids dip them back into the 5 gallon buckets and continue with their sponge ball fight. They can be used every day if desired, and it's a great way to cool off in the summer. We regularly have kids in the neighbor hood with ages ranging from 4 to 17 playing with these things, and we have yet to have an injury due to the sponges themselves. We have had kids slip on the lawn and run into structures we have in our yard, so I still recommend playing with caution. Also, we regularly have friends ask to borrow them for parties. Everyone who uses them seems to prefer them over water balloons.Tools:
Sissors
Pliers

Material:
Sponges
Wire Ties

A pack of 4 sponges cost me .99 cents at our local grocery store. One pack of sponges will make 2 sponge balls. The wire ties can be found at your local hardware store for around $5.00 for a pack of 100. One wire tie is used per sponge ball.

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Freshen Up Your Home While Vacuuming with Oils and Cotton Balls

Vacuuming is nobody's favorite chore, but when you have to do it, you should at least kill two birds with one stone by taking the opportunity to make your home smell great.

All you have to do is soak a few cotton balls in your essential oil of choice, and drop them in the vacuum bag before you start cleaning. The cotton balls will infuse the air ejected by the vacuum with the scent of the oils. The effect will be subtle, but it's so easy to do that it's worth trying every time you vacuum. If your house really smells bad, you can cook your leftover oils in the oven for an hour or so to fully infuse your house with a pleasant scent. Be sure to click through the source link for more clever uses for cotton balls around your home.

9 Exciting Uses for Boring Cotton Balls | WonderHowTo

Photo by Olesia Bilkei (Shutterstock).

Related Perhaps your house doesn't smell particularly nice and you've got company on the way. While you might not clear the smell up forever, you… Read…

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Fried Chinese Crab Balls

These little guys make awesome hors d'oeuvre, as well as elegant entrées. Here I've made crab, shrimp, and lobster balls, and I'll show you how to do it!Ingredients:
1 pound of Sea-Meat. (Crab, Shrimp, Lobster, etc)
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 tablespoon oil (or bacon fat)
1 teaspoon of finely ground salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 egg white, lightly beaten
A few dashes of white pepper powder
Wonton skins

Tools:
Wok / deep fryer
measuring cups
bowl and whisk
knife and cutting board
small food processor

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Dim Sum sesame balls

After I ate dim sum sesame balls in a local restaurant for the first time, I had to go back to the restaurant again and again just to eat sesame balls until the idea of making it myself hit me. It's just fried balls made of some kind of flour, with red bean paste filling, sesame seeds sticking on the surface, can't be that difficult to make, right?

Wrong.

After some work, I got a recipe from somebody in food industry. I was excited. When I put the balls in hot oil, after a couple of minutes, they all popped open, released filling to oil. It was a hot mess. After that, I thoroughly searched internet for different versions of the recipe. Unfortunately there aren't many. All recipes on internet use similar ingredients with similar proportions. Something was odd. I had to keep going to the restaurant to eat it and even became friends with the owner. But she was no help because she buys them pre-made, all she does is frying them. Even if she makes them, I doubt she would give me her recipe as it may be her trade secret.

Meanwhile I happened to see Rachel Ray making them (no filling as I remember), which made me even more determined to nail this recipe to have sesame balls to eat for the rest of my life at any time and to boost my ego :-). 

Because I didn't have a fryer at that time, I used a regular stir fry wok. I suspected the reason for explosion was due to no temperature control  of the frying oil. So I bought a fryer, tried frying temperatures at relatively high, low and in between, still balls exploded. Boy, I must have wasted tons of oil and still didn't give up.

So I put on my food scientist cap and gave the ingredients and proportions a close look , considering the interaction and function of fat, starch, and protein during cooking. I decided to replace one ingredient on the recipe.  It worked like magic! I did it!

I have been making my own red bean paste ever since, tried minced meat filling and fortune (for fun, not edible). I'm sharing all three in this Instructables.

Warning: If you are not entertaining troops or feeding crowds, scale down, baby, following all steps of this Instructables will give you about 160 balls, 24 or more muffins and some creamy bean paste for bread spread.

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