How to Grow Borax Crystals – Valentine’s Day Heart

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Borax makes it easy for your kids to experiment and grow crystals of their very own! Let’s experiment for Valentine’s Day and make heart crystals. Make shimmering crystallized icicle ornaments with pipe cleaners, Borax, and water!

homemade heart Crystals - made from borax

How to Grow Borax Crystals – Valentine’s Day Heart

Gather your kids around the table for this fun exploration into science at home. You can sit down and teach your littles about How to Grow Borax Crystal Valentine’s Day Hearts. No need to run out and buy mommy that special Valentine’s Day gift when they can make it at home with you.

Borax is a common laundry product (also known as sodium borate) that whitens, brightens, and freshens clothes. I also like to use it when cleaning around my home, especially when I need to Degrease my Kitchen Cabinets.

But when mixed with water in a concentrated solution, it can form beautiful crystals on craft pipe cleaners or any textured surface. When Borax is mixed and dissolved in water for several hours as the water cools, it begins to create crystals.

If leftover night, you will see your crystals begin to grow into a thicker heart. Here is a FUN FACT. Hot water can hold more borax than cold water. When the hot water becomes saturated with borax and cools back down, the Borax returns to its natural state, leaving crystals behind.

If you would like to learn about the science behind growing crystals, read this article.

Items needed to create borax crystals

What You Will Need For Borax Crystals – Valentine’s Day Heart

  • Plastic Container (Don’t use glass as it may shatter when added to boiling water)
  • Boiling Water (one or more cups, depending on your container size)
  • Pipe Cleaners molded into hearts
  • Shop Stick, Pencil, or something to dangle your crystals from until completely formed
  • Borax Powder (3 tablespoons per cup of hot water, I used 2 cups of water in my container)
  • Red Food Dye

How To Make Your Borax Crystals – Valentine’s Day Heart

STEP ONE: Begin by boiling your water. Keep in mind for this project you will need 3 tablespoons of Borax per 1 cup of water.

Forming Pipe cleaners into hearts

STEP TWO: While waiting for it to boil, take your pipe cleaners and start forming your heart shapes. Form your heart from the center of your pipe cleaner. Leaving extra length to wrap onto your chopstick, pencil, or stick. If you make a larger heart crystal, you can yarn your hearts instead of the extra pipe cleaner.

Adding borax to hot water

STEP THREE: Get your container ready. I knew before starting that my container could hold 2 cups’ worth of water. In my container, I pre-measured my borax (6 tbsp or 3 tbsp per cup of water).

Once my water was boiling, I added it to my container and then my pre-measured amount of borax. You probably do not need to pre-measure. I am just OCD.

Adding red dye to borax solution

STEP FOUR: Next, stir your borax and water mixture until dissolved, then add in the coloring of your choice. We did red. The dark you go, the darker your crystals will turn out. I would go as dark as possible as borax doesn’t absorb food coloring that well.

Dipping pipe cleaner into borax solution

STEP FIVE: Now you are ready to make crystals. Put your pipe cleaner shape into your container, with the chopstick or pencil lying over the opening. You don’t want the bottom of your shape touching the container. Keep it just above the bottom.

Pipe cleaning with the starting of red crystals

It takes time to grow

STEP SIX: Let soak for at least 6 hours. It is okay to check on them (we did). Plus, it is fun to watch the progress. For best results, we let ours soak overnight.

Heart Crystals

As you can see, even though our Borax mixture was deep dark red, our Borax Crystal Hearts turned out pink. Just remember that if you end up adding lighter colors, the crystals will turn out very light pastel.

Now it is time to decorate your house for Valentine’s Day with your NEW Borax Crystal Valentine’s Day Hearts. 

Other FUN & Frugal Craft Ideas

How To Make Homemade Flubber!

Edible Play Dough – Easy, FUN & Yummy!

UP-Cycle Advertising Magnets: For A Kid-Friendly Craft!

Valentine’s Day Love Bug Craft For Kids

Borax Heart crystals in bowl with pink beads

Making this craft project at home is not only fun, but can save you money. No need to go out and purchase a Heart Crystal Making Craft kit when you can gather your supplies from home and make it yourself.

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12 Comments

  1. Thanks for posting. They came out cute. Surprised at the difference in color. Deep dark red ends up being a pink color. I will need to remember that.

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