Make Crystal Hearts in 6 Steps

Materials you'll need

• pink pipe cleaners
• pencil
• 2 cups hot water
• 1/4 cup borax
• 2 glasses
• spoon

 

Step-by-step tutorial

Step 1: Bend a pipe cleaner into a heart shape, leaving a short stem at the top.

Step 2: Add 2 cups of hot water and 1/4 cup of borax to a measuring cup and stir until dissolved.

Step 3: Wrap the stem of each heart around a pencil so the hearts hang down freely.

Step 4: Rest the pencil across the tops of two glasses so the hearts hang inside without touching the bottom.

Step 5: Carefully pour the borax solution into the glasses until the hearts are fully submerged.

Step 6: Let sit for 24 hours, then lift out your sparkling crystal hearts!

Learn more

When you dissolve borax in hot water, you create a supersaturated solution — meaning the water is holding more borax than it normally could at room temperature. As the solution cools overnight, the extra borax has nowhere left to go, so it starts to crystallize. The tiny crystals latch onto the fuzzy fibers of the pipe cleaner, building up layer by layer until your heart is covered in a sparkling coat. This process is called crystallization — and it happens all over nature! It's how snowflakes take shape in the sky, and how minerals slowly build into gemstones deep underground.