Growing Crystals at Home

I have a few packets of borax sitting in my drawer. I bought them after Missy requested me to make her slime after watching them on Youtube channel. My colleague suggested me to use laundry detergent (Dynamo for blueish hue) but I was not very keen towards the idea of using liquid detergent for a kid to play with. Clear glue seemed to be a great option but this promise was still kept pending as I got out a little of hand for the past few months before we wrapped up for year-end holidays.

When I googled on other usages of borax for kids, I stumbled upon growing borax crystal and I thought it was great for Missy to somehow know what crystallization is about. Since it requires boiling water, most of the steps were managed by myself including the shaping of pipe cleaners into the shapes and initial of the names mentioned by little lady boss which she wanted to present her crystal to from grandparents, grandaunts, aunts and her little baby cousin Issac.

What will be needed:

Pipe cleaners

Boiling water: Borax (I used a ratio of 2 cups to 9 tbs borax as per recommended from the sources I visited)

String (I used ordinary sewing thread)

Stick (I used lidi sticks)

Glass jar/bottle (heatproof)

Pegs/clips (to fasten the thread onto the stick) - not necessarily needed

  

Diluting the boiling water with the borax is not difficult, totally contrary to what I have thought earlier. Next, the pipe cleaners will be immersed in the water-borax solution with the aid of a string and stick. Provide some gap in between of the pipe cleaners in case you are immersing more than one, and avoid the pipe cleaner to touch the base of the solution in the jar. Come back the next morning and you will be able to see beautiful crystals. In fact, crystals can be seen gradually forming within a couple of hours. It is as easy as it sounds. 

Missy was very happy with her 3 crystal hearts and decided to give 2 of them to grandma (on top of a baby breath bouquet on the exact day - 051017) and yi-yi as birthday gifts because coincidentally October is their birth month and another coincidence, daddy willingly agrees to be her messenger since he will be flying over for work the following day (231017) :).