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Supplies
* string
* wide mouth jar
* white pipe cleaners
* blue food coloring (optional)
* boiling water (with adult help)
* borax (available at grocery stores in the laundry soap section)
* pencil
With a little kitchen science you can create long lasting snowflakes as
sparkly as the real ones. Cut a white pipe cleaner into 3 equal sections.
Twist the sections together in the center so that you have a "six-sided"
star shape.
Pipe cleaners and string form a snowflake base for the crystals to grow
on.
If your points are not even, trim the pipe-cleaner sections to the same
length. Now attach string along the outer edges to form a snowflake pattern.
Attach a piece of string to the top of one of the pipe cleaners and tie the
other end to a pencil (this is to hang it from). Fill a widemouth jar with
boiling water. Mix borax into the water one tablespoon at a time. Use 3
tablespoons of borax per cup of water. Stir until dissolved, (don't worry
if there is powder settling on the bottom of the jar). If you want you can
add a little blue food coloring now to give the snowflake a bluish hue. Insert
your pipe cleaner snowflake into the jar so that the pencil is resting on
the lip of the jar and the snowflake is freely suspended in the borax solution.
Wait overnight and by morning the snowflake will be covered with shiny crystals.
Hang in a window as a sun-catcher or use as a winter time decoration.
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