Shape the craft stems into various shapes such as stars, circles, spirals, hearts or candy canes.
Tie one end of the string to your ornament and the other end to the pencil.
Fill the jar with several cups of boiling water. Add borax to the water a tablespoon at a time. Stir until it is dissolved before adding another tablespoon. The formula that works best is 3 tablespoons of borax to each cup of water used. Don't worry if some undissolved borax is at the bottom of the jar. (You can even add a few drops of food colouring to get some interesting colours.)
Hang your creation in the jar with the pencil across the top of the jar to suspend it. It should be fully immersed in the solution and hang freely without touching the bottom of the jar.
Leave the ornaments in the borax solution overnight. As the solution cools, crystals will form on the craft stem. The longer you soak it, the more crystals you will have, so soaking it overnight will give you thick crystals while soaking it for a few hours will give you just a gentle glittery look with the craft stem showing through.
Remove from solution and dry. Use them to decorate your tree or hang in the window like sun-catchers.
HOW IT WORKS
Hot water holds more borax crystals than cold water. That's because in hot water the molecules are farther apart, making room for more of the borax crystals to dissolve. When no more of the borax can be dissolved, the solution is said to be saturated. As this solution cools, the water molecules move closer together again. Now there's not enough room for the dissolved borax and it reappears as crystals. Also, some of the water evaporates so there is less of it to hold onto the dissolved borax.
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