CRYSTAL CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS

Today I'd like to share one of our annual family Christmas traditions.  Every year my girls and I make these cute home grown crystal ornaments.  They are great for decorating the Christmas tree with, decorative additions to wrapped presents or just hung on a rosemary tree and given as a teachers gift.  The sky is the limit with these ornaments.


Here is what you will need:
String
Wide mouth jar
White or colored pipe cleaners
Boiling water
Borax (available at grocery stores in the laundry soap section.  I use 20 Mule Team Borax                              Laundry Booster)
Pencil
       
Take your pipe cleaner and bend it into any shape you would like.  We've done stars, circles, letters, candy canes, rectangles (add a small bow and wa la you have a present).   Once you have your shape, tie a piece of string around the top of the ornament (or you can use rubber bands, unused dental floss, left over pieces of pipe cleaner just something to hold it on to the pencil.  Tie the other end of the string to the pencil.  It only needs to be long enough to allow the pipe cleaner to hang freely inside the jar.  For this tutorial we used a pipe cleaner instead of a pencil.  I have to say the pencil and the string work the best.  It was hard to remove the pipe cleaner candy canes from the green pipe cleaner in this instance.

Next, mix about 3-4 tablespoons of  Borax with 1 cup of boiling water.  Stir until dissolved. Put ornament into jar and allow pencil to reset across the top of the jar.  You can add a few drops of food coloring if you'd like to your borax mixture.  Your crystals will then come out the color you added or leave it as is and it will turn out clear.  Allow crystals to grow over night undisturbed.  

The next morning you should wake up to this.

The girls love this tradition and look forward to it every year.  It allows their creativity to flow and allows them to add a personal touch to the gifts that they give.


I hope you enjoy this craft.  I'd love to see the ornaments you make so  send them in when your done and I'll feature them on the blog.

Susan
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By the way - There is a great Willow House Jewelry giveaway over at Coastal Charm today.  Stop by and check it out.  You have a chance to win one of the three pairs of earrings on the left.  Aren't they adorable?  I didn't even know that Willow House had jewelry until I saw this post.  Stop over and check it out.  There are five great ways to win!


Today's link up parties: