How to Grow Borax Crystals

You can easily make these icy-blue crystals - and have snowflakes year-round! You can make borax crystals in the shape of snowflakes or as ordinary crystals. See "Grow Sugar Crystals," under Related eHows, for instructions.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Buttons
• Blue Food Coloring
• Glass Jars
• Pencils
• White Pipe Cleaners
• Cotton String
• Thin Wires
• Glass jars

1. Bend a wire or pipe cleaner into the shape of a snowflake. If you don't have either of those items, you can use a button.

2. Tie the wire, pipe cleaner or button to one end of a piece of string.

3. Tie the other end of the string around the middle of a pencil.

4. Boil 1 c. water.

5. Remove from heat.

6. Add the borax slowly, one teaspoon at a time, stirring continuously.

7. Add blue food coloring.

8. Pour the solution into a glass jar.

9. Place the pencil over the top of the jar so that the string is hanging down into the jar and the wire, pipe cleaner or button is submerged about three-quarters of the way down into the solution.

10. Allow the jar to sit someplace where it won't be disturbed.

11. Check on the solution in about 24 hours, and you'll see crystals forming around the object at the end of the string.

Tips & Warnings

• You can find borax in the laundry section of the grocery store.

• If the string hanging from the pencil is too long when you place it in the solution, just roll the pencil between your hands until the string wraps around it and the length hanging down becomes shorter.

• Make sure to supersaturate your solution. This means continuing to add the borax and stir it in until the solution is saturated and the borax begins collecting on the bottom of the dish.

• Keep borax and borax crystals out of the reach of small children.