Crafts With Borax

Borax has been used in households for over 100 years.

Crafts with Borax include a variety of distinct ideas, which turn the typical arts and crafts project into a fun science experiment. By using a common household product, Borax, crafters create crystal ornaments, silly putty or slime and one-of-a-kind snowflakes.

Crystal Ornaments

Hundreds of tiny crystals form on pipe cleaners to create an ornament craft using Borax.

Borax offers an easy method for creating stunning crystal ornaments and decorations. Simply bend a pipe cleaner into any shape and submerge in a Borax solution. The colors of the pipe cleaners come through as crystals form, adding to the overall design. P. Allen Smith offers a recipe for the Borax solution on their website.

Silly Putty

Kids learn about polymers while making silly putty out of Borax.

Mix Borax with craft glue and water and the result is pliable silly putty. The silly putty has a stretchy consistency and is strong enough to lift images from newspapers, just like the commercial brand. As The Science House points out on their website, this Borax craft easily coincides with a science lesson about polymers.

Slime

Slime is a child-safe craft with Borax.

Use less glue in the silly putty recipe and get a looser version known as slime. Food coloring allows the crafter to make an endless variety of slimes. Try adding fun objects such as small plastic bugs for an added touch to the finished slime project.

References

• 20 Mule Team Borax: About
• P. Allen Smith: Borax Crystal Ornaments
• The Science House: Silly Putty
• Bizarre Labs: Slime; Brian Carusella