My older borax crystal snowflake post is getting lots of hits lately. I guess everyone is looking for Christmas decoration ideas. Because of its’ increased popularity, because my kids requested to make these again, and since we took lots of photos because Zach wants to make a step-by-step book on Christmas decorations, here’s a very detailed borax crystal snowflake “how to”.
Materials:
- wide mouth jar
borax
boiling water
pipe cleaner
pencil
string or fishing line

Cut three even lengths of pipe cleaner. (We did our 10cm each since that is what fit well in our jars.)

Add extra embellishments if desired.

Attach string to one arm of your snowflake.

Tie string to pencil and adjust length so that snowflake will not touch the bottom of the jar.

Pour boiling water into jar. Add borax until no more will dissolve. (About 3 tbsp. per cup of water)
Lower snowflake into solution.

Or if you start early enough they will be finished the same day! It was very exciting to watch how quickly the crystals formed once they got started.
Next batch: embellished snowflakes and “icicles”.








mission: to promote random acts of kindness through giving away "knits" to those in need






I like those! I’m definitely going to try them with the kids. Thanks!
Ok that is just a great idea…when I am done exams I am going to do this with the girls. They will love to watch them grow and they are so pretty! thanks for the idea!
[...] by Angie, we did the Borax snowflake project, and then, while the Borax was out, I remembered about Flubber. A tad messy, but well worth it, [...]
[...] The snowflakes are beginning to crystallize, and I’m thinking that the choice of pipecleaner color wasn’t the most inspired. They don’t look beautiful and Christmassy so much as “eerie starfish in specimen jars”-like. [...]
[...] December 13, 2007 by Angela My borax snowflake post is getting lots of hits because of this link. There are a couple other cool snowflake ideas there [...]
[...] made more borax crystal snowflakes (and icicles) today. If you have about 45 seconds to spare you can watch the transformation on [...]
this is such a cool project right now i’m doing it for a science project at school
Hi! I love those snowflakes!
If everyone knows where I can find it, here…please tell me.
I’m from Portugal, but I can’t find the pipe cleaners..
These are so cool. I did them a few years ago for a science project, and it was so easy and WAY fun.