Make Borax Crystal Flowers

Why make borax crystal flowers?  Well, do you love the look of freshly cut flowers sitting in a vase?  I do.  But I never buy them because of my cursed black thumb.  While most people's cut flowers last for weeks, mine always start turning brown and wilting within a day or two.

Boo, black thumb!   

Last week our craft store had a sale on fake flowers.  I was so tempted to buy them, but they looked kinda cheesy and screamed, "I'm fake and I attract dust."

But I ended up getting the flowers anyway, because I wanted to make something pretty with them.  Here's what I came up with:  Crystal Flowers 

Make Crystal Flowers!

Yes.  My fake flowers are covered with real crystals... that I grew from Borax.  Lovely, aren't they?

Would you like to make your own frosted-looking flowers?  Read on!
  

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Materials to make Borax Crystal Flowers

• Borax
• Water
• Fake flowers
• Pencils
• String
• Tape
• Spoons
• Containers
• Paper Towels 

Directions:

1.  Remove any leaves from your fake flowers.

2.  Tie the flower stems to your pencils using string.  Dangle your flower heads into your containers.  Make sure that the flower heads don't touch anything else (like the container's bottom or side, or other flowers.)  Adjust the placement of your flowers and string lengths as necessary.  Then, remove the flowers from the plastic containers.   (You don't want them to touch anything else because you don't want your crystal flowers attaching to other things.)

3.  Boil your water.  Pour it into your empty container.  Then, dissolve spoonfuls of Borax one at a time until the Borax no longer dissolves.  Then, place your flowers into your container and let them sit there for a couple of hours.

 

Note:

• If your pencils keep rolling, use tape to keep them still.
• You may have some undissolved Borax on the bottom of your container.  That's totally fine.

4.  After a couple of hours, pull the flowers out and see how crystallized they've become.  When you have enough crystals to your liking, set the flowers to dry standing up.

Notes:

• If you're having trouble removing the crystal growth from the bottom or sides of the container, simply pour boiling water into the container again to dissolve the crystals.

Enjoy your lovely and sparkly (fake) flowers!

And if you enjoyed this project, here are three more fun crystal projects!

• Grow Crystals on Nature
• Mini Crystal Sculptures

Check out these other neat science ideas!

• This awesome STEAM Kids ebook  contains over 50+ STEAM activities

• My 30+ Favorite Flower and Plant Projects from over the years!  

(Special thanks to About.com's Chemistry section for inspiring today's science experiment and craft.)