I’m making DIY Borax crystal hearts! For Valentine’s Day I thought it would be fun to highlight a fun and easy project for anyone from 3 to 300 years old. However. It actually takes 24 hours to properly procure so…it’s not quite done yet.
Recently I learned you can create amazing crystal ornaments, which are much sturdier, quicker to make, and more reliable than the standard sugar-water-string project I used to fill the kitchen with growing up. The secret is sodium borate. What what!?
Even though I have never really thought about Borax, the laundry booster (softens hard water and leaves your clothes cleaner and brighter!), it’s actually pretty rad. It’s old school: meaning it does everything. EVERYTHING!
It cleans things like laundry, the bathroom, carpet, etc. It deodorizes smelly things (it’s the original Febreze), and it even repels cockroaches and the like (although I’m not really sure what you would do with it…put a bit in the corner?). And it makes crystals!
After piecing together horrible and incomplete instructions from five or six different “how to” sites I determined it’s some sort of chemical reaction between this Borax and pipe cleaners, which creates the amazing crystals. So I went out and got both.
The Borax will run you $6 for a box, but you only need three tablespoons per one cup of boiling water. And pipe cleaners? Cheap. Because I didn’t feel like hitting six Dollar Stores like last time, I just popped into a craft store and paid the overpriced $1.50 for a pack of 10. Sometimes time is money people.
If you want to do this project here are the instructions for Borax crystal hearts
- Shape pipe cleaner into whatever you want (aka heart)
- Attach string to pipe cleaner and to pencil or stick, or whatever
- Hang pipe cleaner in glass jar, or other heat resistant container. Try to keep it from touching the bottom or sides
- Mix three tablespoons Borax to one cup boiling water in equal amounts. Dissolve (if you want coloured crystals add some food colouring)
- Pour mixture into jar, over pipe cleaner shape. Cover pipe cleaner completely
- Wait 24 hours
Now, why couldn’t anyone else put all those instructions in one place?
Unfortunately it hasn’t been 24 hours, so I can’t show you my Valentine’s project/gifts yet. But I will! Stay tuned and have a great day.
Check out the finished Borax crystal hearts!
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