Blogger / 4 December, 2023 / Nanny Anita

Pipe Cleaner Crystal Decorations

While looking through Pinterest I came across these really beautiful pipe cleaner crystal decorations from the website Playdough to Plato. They are visually very striking and I knew that they would make really pretty Christmas tree decorations.

Make sure you follow my Christmas board on Pinterest for more ideas.  Don’t forget to save the pin for later.

To make your own pipe cleaner crystals you will need:

• Borax*
• Water
• Kettle
• Container
• Pipe cleaners
• String
• Kebab stick/ pencil

*Borax is a very fine powder that can cause irritation if it is inhaled so I added it to the water rather than the children.

First form your pipe cleaners into your desired shape. YC and I went for angels, candy canes, a present, and a bauble.

Attach a length of thread to the top of your pipe cleaner. Then wind the rest of the thread around the kebab stick or a pencil.

Boil your kettle. Pour it into your container. The amount of water will depend on how long your decoration is. The pipe cleaner will need to be completely covered.

Add the borax to the water. We didn’t measure it out, we just kept adding little by little until the water became saturated. Basically that means keep adding borax until no more will dissolve in the water.

Place your pipe cleaner into the borax solution. It should be suspended in the water. You may need to wind or unwind some of the thread from the pencil.

We placed our jars up on the window ledge so that we could keep an eye on them.

The great thing about growing these crystals is that the start to form really quickly.

We left them in the solution for about 36 hours before taking them out.

Leave them to dry on a paper towel for a while before hanging them onto your Christmas tree.

We did try making these with Epsom salts as well because Borax can be really tricky to get hold of. However we had no luck with the crystals growing.

If you enjoyed making these pipe cleaner crystal decorations be sure to check out my Father Christmas pine cone decorations and Christmas straw shooters.

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