Growing Crystals

Ever since she was a little girl your Aunt Tiffani has loved sparkly things, especially crystals.  This week I thought I would share a project with crystals that we have done in school. You will need your parents to help you because there are some things that you will need an adult to help you in the process. There are many possibilities for this project. You could make Christmas ornaments. You could make window decorations. Today I want to show you how to make crystal geodes. A geode is a natural occurring hollow stone that sometimes contains crystals. They can be a rainbow of different colors. These geodes are going to be made from egg shells. This is only one way to do it. If you look online, you can find many other creative ideas for using the crystals.

To do this project you will need to find these things:

·       1 box of 20 Mule Team Borax Laundry Soap

·       A medium size sauce pan.

·       1 gallon of distilled, R/O, or bottled water. (tap watter will also work, but not as well)

·       Several ½ egg shells (Clean them out as much as you can.)

·       A Spoon to stir

·       A plastic cup to dip water out.

·       Food coloring if you want different colored crystals

·       Optional: colored pipe cleaners

Directions:

1. Fill the sauce pan 2/3 – 3/4 full of water.

2. Have an adult heat it on the stove. It doesn’t have to get to boiling, but the warmer the better.

3. Slowly stir in the borax powder. Eventually, you will rach a point where no more will dissolve. This is called a saturated solution.

4. Let it cool until it is still warm but won’t burn little fingers.

5. Dip some out into one of the cups and add several drops of food coloring. You want it pretty dark.

6. Set the egg shells in an old egg carton so they look like little cups.

7. Fill each one with the colored solution.

As it cools, you will start to see crystal forming. If you want more crystals after they stop growing, you can pour out the solution (save it!) and add more of the fresh warm solution. You can even drop the food coloring right onto the crystals and let it dry to make the colors more vivid.

Another fun thing to do is to make shapes (stars crosses, etc.) out of pipe cleaners and put them in a cup. Pour in enough warm solution to cover them and you will soon have sparkly Christmas or Easter ornaments. They also look good in a sunny window!

 

 Note:

* Borax can be a skin and eye irritant. You may want the little ones to wear gloves. Food gloves work fine.

** Be sure the no little ones try to eat the crystals. They are not really poisonous except in large amounts, but they will make you sick!

More Ideas

  https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Grow-Borax-Crystals/