How to Make Easy Crystals at Home
Amaze your children with a simple science experiment to make crystals at home. Use the crystals to create decorative ornaments for a holiday tree or to hang from a mobile in your child's room. The key to making easy crystals is to purchase the right product to cause the crystals to form overnight. Another secret for success is to make sure that the material growing the crystals is hanging freely and not touching the sides or the bottom of the container.
Things You'll Need
- Pipe cleaners
- Wide-mouth jar
- Pencil
- Scissors
- String
- Water
- Measuring cup
- Sauce pan
- Tablespoon
- 20 Mule Team Borax
- Food coloring
Instructions
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1
Bend any color of pipe cleaner into a shape that will fit inside the wide mouth jar. Check to make sure that the shape of the pipe cleaner will also fit through the mouth of the jar without becoming misshapen. Once inside the jar, the pipe cleaners must not touch the sides or the bottom. Crystals will form around the sections of the pipe cleaner that are hanging freely.
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2
Cut a 6-inch strip of string. Tie one end to the center of a pencil. Tie the other end to the pipe cleaner. Insert the pipe cleaner shape inside the jar. Rest the pencil across the top of the jar. Make sure that the pipe cleaner is dangling freely. Remove the pipe cleaner and adjust the string if necessary.
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3
Fill the jar with water up to 1 inch from the top. Pour the water from the jar into a measuring cup to determine how many cups it held. Pour the water that you removed into a saucepan. Bring the water to a boil.
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4
Carefully pour the boiling water into the jar. Dissolve 3 tbsp. of 20 Mule Team Borax for every cup of water in the container. Make sure to use 20 Mule Team Borax; substitutes will not work. It takes a highly concentrated solution to cause the crystals to form. If there is sediment on the bottom of the jar after stirring the Borax, it's fine.
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5
Add several drops of food coloring if you'd like to make colored crystals. Stir the food coloring to mix it well.
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6
Re-insert the pipe cleaner into the jar. Make sure that the pipe cleaner is not touching the jar anywhere. Leave the jar undisturbed overnight.
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Tips & Warnings
Make rock candy crystals by dangling a string, not a pipe cleaner, in water that's super saturated with sugar. It can take several days for the sugar crystals to form, but they are edible.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Crystals in Glass image by Vanessa van Rensburg from Fotolia.com
