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We are a science-y family. We love anything that involves experimenting. We love growing borax crystals so we decided to play around with Valentine’s Day themed crystals over the weekend.
You can grow your own Crystal Hearts too by following these simple steps!
First, the important stuff. Children should be monitored closely when dealing with chemicals. These are NOT edible. I repeat, NOT EDIBLE.
Here’s what you need to grow your own Crystal Hearts!
- Borax (Wal-mart carries it by the laundry detergent)
- Water
- Pipe cleaners
- Fishing line
- Wood skewers
- Quart size mason jar or large pot
- Food coloring (optional)
- Shape your pipe cleaner into a heart. Fold pipe cleaner in half. Then bring the ends together and twist forming the heart.
- Attach a piece of fishing line to the heart shaped pipe cleaner. Hang the heart from the wood skewer over the mason jar.
- Boil hot water. The ratio of water to borax is 3 cups water to 9 tablespoons of borax.
- Once water is boiling, add borax.
- Stir until borax is completely dissolved in the water.
- Pour mixture into the mason jar. Be sure the pipe cleaner is not touching the sides or bottom of the jar.
- Optional: If you want to use food coloring, now would be the time to add it to the mixture. There is no exact amount of food coloring to add. It will vary from brand to brand. More is probably better than less.
- Allow to sit in mixture over night.
- Remove from the mixture. The crystal will detach easily from the fishing line for a nice clean shape.
We did not add any food coloring to these hearts. I love how you can see the red through the crystals.
The pink heart shown at the beginning of the post is from using red food coloring.
Such a fun experiment to do with the kids!
