Science Experiment: Borax Crystal Hearts

This is fun experiment with very cool results.  Our inspiration was from The Scientific Mom.  She created Borax Crystal Ornaments as part of her 12 Days of Science Series with her daughter.  Be sure to check out her blog here to find out about all the amazing excursions and experiments that she does with her daughter.  We decided to make borax crystal hearts for Valentine's day and a few snowflakes for Winter.  Keep reading to find out how we made these.

To make Borax Crystal Hearts You'll Need:

Pipe Cleaners

20 Mule Team Borax (found in the laundry section  of the grocery store) (5-6 Tablespoons or more)
***Borax is not-edible and should be handled with care when using with children)

Water (2 Cups or so)

Jar or Glass Container

Pencil or stick

The first step in making these is to shape a pipe cleaner into a the shape you desire.  Make sure to form a hanger or add one to the shape using the pipe cleaner. Then boil about 2 cups of water (depends on how big your glass container is), let cool a little and pour into your glass container. Then, take about 6 Tablespoons of Borax and stir into the water until dissolved.  Then hang your pipe cleaner shape from a pencil. Place the pencil on top of the glass container.  Make sure it is submerged.

You can add more Borax which will create more crystals.  Let this sit over night, and the next morning  you'll have beautiful crystal shapes. ***Keep the pipe cleaner submerged over night! It was fun to experiment and check them the next morning.  Here are some of our results:

Close-up Crystals

Red Metallic Heart

Silver Pipe Cleaner Snowflake

Swirls

We had a lot of fun experimenting with this idea. We tried adding food color, but the colorful pipe cleaners really brought out the color too.  Have fun with this experiment and let me know your results!

Glittery Magnolia Pods

When were on Thanksgiving Break in the South of the US we gathered some magnolia pods as we always do to add to our continuous nature collection. They are vey similar to Pine Cones, but have a large stem on them.  I've seen many others put glitter on pine cones,  so I thought why not put some glitz on Magnolia Pods and dress them up for the holidays? So that is what we did.

Here are the Magnolia Pods before glitter.

Paint some glue on the pods.

Then either sprinkle and shake the glitter on the pods...

Or place them in a small box and roll them around in the glitter for less mess.

You could fashion some ribbon onto your pods or pine cones.

Hang them as ornaments or garland.

Or just lay them out or place them in a decorative bowl for the holidays or anytime.

Happy Glittering!

Painted Salt Dough Ornaments

We finally finished our Painted Salt Dough Ornaments today.  Some of these beauties will be going on our Christmas tree and others will become some fantastic gifts to our family and friends.  It was a long process, but well worth it.  We made Salt Dough Heart Necklaces back in the Springtime for Mother's Day and they made fabulous gifts.

To make Salt Dough Ornaments you'll need:

(We doubled this recipe)

1 cup flour

1/4 cup salt

1/4 cup water

cookie cutters 

acrylic paint

brushes

glitter

ribbon for hanging

Mix the flour and salt well and add water.  Add more flour if too sticky or more water if too dry.  Roll out on a flour surface to about 1/4 inch thickness.  Use cookie cutters to create the shapes for your ornaments and then place the dough shapes on a foil lined cookie sheet.  Use a straw form holes on the top of the ornament shapes.  Bake between 275 F and 300 F for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

After the ornaments were done, we painted the dough shapes with solid colors of acrylic paint.

Then we added more detail with gold paint and other colors.

Lastly, we added some touches of glitter to add some sparkle which is always fun!

Next, we'll be adding some ribbon for hanging.

What have you been making with your children for the Holiday season?

Contact Paper Ornaments

Want a quick way to make ornaments with your children? Well,  make some Contact Paper Ornaments. They are so easy to make.  My daughter loves to draw so this was a fun way to incorporate her drawings into some fun tree decorations.

For Contact Paper Ornaments you'll need :

-White paper or card stock

-markers or crayons

-contact paper

-hole puncher

-wire or pipe cleaners

First, start drawing lots of fun Holiday or Winter themed ideas onto white paper or card stock. We did this together.  I started to draw,  and then my six year old joined in.  Lots of Christmas trees and candy canes.

Santa and reindeer.

Then after you have a bunch of drawings, cover each side of the drawing with contact paper.

Lastly, cut around the drawings,  punch a hole, and then add wire or pipe cleaners for hanging. They are ready to hang or to be given as unique gifts that I know many people will truly LOVE!

Salt Dough Heart Necklaces

Salt dough is always fun and the materials for it are readily available. We created some heart necklaces from salt dough which will be given for Mother's Day to C's Grandmas and one for me of course!  We made extras for some Mom friends that we know too.  These hearts would also make great Valentine's Day gifts, Holiday ornaments, or even for no reason at all.  Just to say "I Love You"! ***We actually gave these as teachers' gifts too.**

To create salt dough you need:

1 cup flour

1/4 cup salt

1/4 cup water

Mix flour and salt well and add water. Add more flour if too sticky or more water if too dry. Then form shapes on a foil lined cookie sheet. Use a straw to form holes on top so you can make them a necklace. Bake between 275 F and 300 F for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. 

Here we painted the hearts with red acrylic paint first then used q-tips (cotton buds) for the dots.

Here we used q-tips like a paint brush to create beautiful pictures on our hearts. After painting we added Mod Podge for  a glossy look.

These smaller hearts we are using as pins by gluing a pin back on the back.

On these we added thin ribbon for necklaces.

Would you like receiving these as a gift?

Beaded Snowflakes.....and Happy Winter Solstice!

Happy Winter Solstice!  So appropriate to be making snowflakes and other wintery things!  We made some Beautiful Snowflakes using some Chenille stems and some beads! They turned out rather Lovely! This is a nice simple activity that could make a great holiday gift of an ornament or just something to occupy your kids while you are so busy.  I know I have been super busy!

I chose chenille stems in icy colors like Blue, Silver, and White to look more like wintery snowflakes. For the beads, I chose icy colors (cool colors like blue, green, and purple) and crystal clear beads to add to the wintery effect!

I cut the chenille stems in half and twisted three of them together to create a star or asterisk shape. You could use all the same color or mix like I did here.

The all you need to do is slide the beads on the chenille stems.  You could put them on randomly or in a pattern.

Here is one with more of a pattern! Then take another half of a chenille stem and twist on a loop to hang the snowflake!

I just love these! Cassie has been working on a few each day.  We'll have a collection by the end of the week!

HAPPY WINTER!

Linked to: Kids Art Explorers

Newspaper and Tissue Paper Ornaments

We created these beautiful newspaper and tissue paper ornaments over the weekend! What do you think? I like the funky shape of them and that they are not perfectly round in shape!!! They are a little messy,  but I think they had nice results!  To make these you'll need:

Newspaper

  Tissue Paper 

(preferably non-bleeding kind)

Mod Podge

Paper clips or wire

masking tape

paint brushes

glitter (or not)

ribbon

First crinkle about a page of newspaper into a ball.  Try to make them hold their shape as best as you can.

Then take aper clip or piece of wire (or even ornament hanger) and shape it into a triangular shape like this.

Try tucking or embedding the paper clip into the wad of newspaper and tape it into place.  I added making tape on the top to so it would stay in place.  Tissue paper will cove over this so it doesn't matter if you can see the masking tape now.  If you don't like the appearance of the ball,  you can use more masking tape to help make the shape more "round".

We tore up some tissue paper into small pieces first.  Then take your brush and put some mod podge on the newspaper and place pieces of tissue paper over it.  Make sure to brush over the tissue paper too with the mod podge.  It gets rather messy!

As you can see the mod podge is covered all over.  My daughter C needed some help to get some of the spots smoothed out.

We put all the ornaments on a foil lined tray so they could dry and not stick to anything!!! We added gold and green glitter to add some sparkle! Everything needs some SPARKLE! Don't you think?

After they were dry,  I added some ribbon as a finishing touch! Now they are ready to be given as gifts!
They remind me of our Tissue Paper Mache Easter Eggs.  I guess we could have used little balloons too?

I think they look fabulous on our Christmas Tree!!!  I like the glossy shiny look of them! Can't wait to give them as gifts! I hope everyone will enjoy them!

What Are Your Favorite Christmas Ornaments?