How to Make Borax Crystal Hearts

This sparkly craft project is also a fun science experiment. You can point out how substances change from liquid to solid as they cool.

Borax crystal hearts make great Christmas tree decorations, valentines or just fun trinkets that your child can give to friends and relatives. Their sparkle and shine add fun to any room and any occasion, and they are easy to make in a wide variety of colors and sizes. You can set up to make borax crystal hearts in under an hour, then allow them to "grow" overnight to reveal a shiny creation in the morning. In this article, we will discuss how to make borax crystal hearts.

Things You'll Need

• Borax laundry booster
• Chenille pipe cleaners
• Container with a wide mouth
• Yarn
• Pencil
• Clear spray paint
• Scissors

Instructions

How to Make Borax Crystal Hearts

1. 

   Shape the pipe cleaners into hearts. You can make big hearts by joining two pipe cleaners together at the bottom point of the heart and the place where the top curves meet, or you can make smaller ones by using a single pipe cleaner and bending it into a heart shape. Make sure that you secure the ends of the pipe cleaner tightly by wrapping them together several times so that your shape does not fall apart while it is sitting in the borax solution. Once the crystals have formed, you will no longer be able to bend the pipe cleaners without breaking them off, so it is important that your pipe cleaner heart is able to hold its shape on its own.

2. Tie a piece of string to each of the heart shapes. You will use this to suspend them in the Borax solution. Later, you can use the string to hang your ornaments on the wall or Christmas tree.

3. Tie the hearts to a pencil. This will enable you to hang them in the Borax solution easily.

4. Mix boiling water and Borax in the wide mouth container. Depending on the size of the container, you will as much as a gallon of water. There should be enough Borax in the water that the water remains cloudy.

5. Lay the pencil across the container. This will suspend the hearts in the hot solution. Make sure that they are not touching the bottom or sides of the container or the crystals will form a blob on the side of the heart.

6. Leave the ornaments in the solution overnight. As the liquid cools, beautiful crystals will form on the hearts. They will be the color of the pipe cleaner that you used to make the shape.

7. 

   Spray your ornaments with clear spray paint. This will help preserve and protect the crystals. If you wish, you can spray the ornaments with glitter spray paint to make them even sparklier.

Tips & Warnings

• You can use these pretty shapes as picture frames, tie them together to make a shiny mobile or decorate your Christmas tree with their sparkling beauty.

• Be careful when you are pouring the boiling water that it does not splash out of the container and hit you.

Resources

• Read about more fun and educational craft projects for kids