St. Patrick’s Day Pipe Cleaner Borax Crystal Shamrock Craft

St. Patrick’s Day Borax Crystal Shamrock Craft

Borax Crystal Shamrock Fun

As a child, we may have been intrigued with looking and collecting rocks and small crystal-like souvenirs from the gift shops. Today’s post will bring out that hidden crystal hunter as we show you how to create a super fun Borax crystal shamrock!

Who would have thought that Borax and hot water sitting overnight could form crystals?! That idea was so amazing to us and definitely sparked our imagination!

Create and form a shamrock clover out of pipe cleaners or any desired shape of your choice and submerge into the mixture and voila! You have a crystal artifact after 24 hours! What great science topics, cause and effect, and artful creations with just a few materials!

Creating The Shamrock Clover Frame

To create the shamrock clover frames, you will need some crafting pipe cleaners for the materials. We used St. Patrick’s themed colors of green and yellow.

To create the shamrock simply fold the end of the pipe cleaner into a loop and twist the end to close the loop. Then create a dimple into the upper portion of the loop to look like a heart shape.

The process for making the other two heart shapes is the same as the first. Fold the stem back up to form a second loop and twist twice to close the loop. Then create the dimple into that loop to make it look like a heart shape.

Finish off the third loop like before folding the stem up and twisting twice to close the loop. Then make your dimple into that loop.

That’s all it takes to create your own shamrock clovers for St. Patrick’s Day!

What Is Borax?

Borax is a mineral and salt of boric acid. Borax is also known by the chemical name Sodium Tetraborate.

What Is A Crystal?

A crystal is a solid structure with atoms that are arranged in an ordered, repeating pattern.

Is Making Borax Crystals Safe?

The short answer is that in this capacity of the project, it is generally considered safe for making crafts, such as crystals, and some slime applications. Borax has been used in many cleaning, detergents, and cosmetic products for over a hundred years. However, children should always be supervised when using any chemical that is used for crafts or educational purposes.

Materials Needed For Making The Borax Crystal Shamrock

• A mason jar or other container to hold the borax mixture and shamrock frame
• A pencil, chopstick, or other small stick
• Hot Water (Parental supervision needed)
• Pipe cleaner shamrock frames
• Borax (Found at most grocery, or convenience stores)
• A piece of cardboard to cover the top of the mason jar
• Spoon to stir the hot water and borax mixture
• Thread to tie the shamrock to the stick if using this method
• Scissors to cut the thread

How To Create The Borax Crystal Shamrock

1. Pour the hot water into the mason jar.
2. Stir in the mixture with the spoon. You will also need to make sure to add enough Borax to the solution for this craft to work out correctly. We found that continuing to add borax to the solution until we observed that it was no longer dissolving into the solution was the correct amount of borax to use.
3. Use the stick, or pencil you have to support the shamrock frame in the cup by either twisting the pipe around the stick or by using a piece of thread to tie the shamrock to the stick.
4. Place the shamrock frame into the mason jar.
5. (Important) You will need to cover the top of the jar with cardboard or another cover in order for the craft to form crystals.
6. Set the mason jar aside and wait.
7. We found that within approximately 24 hours after setting up the craft it was ready to be taken out.

I hope that you enjoyed today’s St. Patrick’s Day Borax Crystal Shamrock Craft and look forward to seeing you all for the next project!

 

Additional St. Patrick’s Day Activities and posts below:

Love reading? Check out our St. Patrick’s Day Reading Log Chart here.

Counting activity for St. Patrick’s Day!

Find the Leprechaun in our Hidden Picture Puzzles!

Play the game of Tic-Tac-Toe with a St. Patrick’s theme.