Crystal Snowflakes...

This is an oldie but a goodie... yeah I just said that... but its true... This is one of the DIYs that I shared on a local tv show called Kim's Christmas Cottage here in Calgary - it's a great one to do with you kids or grandkid

You will need borax, string, pipe cleaners, a container to hold enough liquid to cover over your snowflake completely, boiling water, measuring spoon, stirring spoon, skewer.





Start by making a snowflake out of your pipe cleaner - the shape and size is up to you (as long as they fit within your container) for my shape of snowflake start with three equal pieces of pipe cleaner and twist them together...





...even out the arms of your snowflake and prepare 12 shorter pieces of pipe cleaner to make all of the little snowflake points...





I like the look of two V's twisted onto each arm of the snowflake...





I worked my way around until all six arms hadtwo little V's...





...and then tie a string onto the snowflake with enough slack to suspend it into your container...





Then prepare your magical solution... for every cup of boiling water you need three table spoons of borax... stir until he borax is completely dissolved... this is the reason that you want to do this craft craft with your little ones - they'll need you to help with measuring the borax and handling the boiling water :)
You can also add some food colouring here if you would like coloured snow flakes!... experiment and have fun!





Tie the end of the string to a skewer and hand the snowflake in the solution ensuring it is completely covered and not touching the bottom...





Now comes the hard part... waiting until the next day for your crystal snowflake to develop!... as the hot water cools there is less room for the borax molecules and the cooler water squeezes them out... and they cling to the pipe cleaner!





Once the solution has cooled over night pull your crystal snowflake out and lay it on a paper towel to dry!





Once it has dried tie on a little ribbon bow and hand that crystal baby on your tree!





ta da!






Original article and pictures take http://www.hometalk.com/11354539/crystal-snowflakes site