Crystal Snowflakes

My kids thought these were the prettiest snowflakes they've ever seen!

Supplies:

Pipe cleaners

pencils

string

boiling water

Borax (found in the laundry aisle at the supermarket)

wide mouth container

First you take the pipe cleaner and cut it into 3 equal pieces. Then twist them together and spread the ends out to make your desired snowflake shape. We decided also to make a J and A for the kiddies.

Then attach a piece of string (I wouldn't recommend using twine like I did. It was too stiff and kind of made the snowflakes flip into each other) to one end of the snowflake and tie the other end of the string around a pencil (or other object that you can set across the top of the container so that the snowflake dangles).

Now, set the snowflake aside. Fill the container with boiling water (keep track of how much you add). For every cup of water you want to add 3 tablespoons of Borax. Stir to dissolve the borax. If some of it just won't dissolve, that's okay...it will still work.

Dangle your snowflake into the water and let it sit. I've heard you should wait over night, but I never really understood what that means. If I put it in at 1am and let it sit until I get up at 7am, is that long enough? Anyway, I put mine in the water at 10:30pm and at 7:30am they were done!

Its best to use one container per snowflake, but I could only find one so I put all three in at the same time. You don't want your snowflakes to touch each other or they'll get stuck together.

When we took them out to let them dry Addie was so excited to EAT hers! I guess will have to give rock candy a try some time soon! (ps. I did not let her taste it!!)

These little beauties are going make it onto the kids Christmas tree in their room. I wanted to hang them in a window so we could watch them sparkle, but I lost the vote!