A few weeks ago I was itching to put out springtime decor and wanted to do a project with my oldest. Well, one thing lead to another and we ended up with these beautiful borax crystal flowers. They are gorgeous and so incredibly easy to make!
The first thing you will want to figure out is a container to put your flower and borax solution in. The flower should be able to suspend in the container without touching any of the sides or bottom and easily removed without touching the rim. I used an old Tupperware container. Then you will need to devise a method for suspending the flower. I used a fairly large rose so my container was quite large. I ended up tying the stem to a pencil and then resting the pencil on the edges of the container. You will need to do a bit of engineering for the items you have to work with.
Borax can be very toxic so please use caution while doing this activity with kiddos. You will not want them to touch the flower until it’s fully dry. It took about two hours for the flower to reach the crystallized consistency that we liked; the longer it sits in the solution the bigger your crystals will get. Enjoy your masterpiece in a pretty vase for everyone to see!
Materials:
- Artificial flower
- Borax
- Water
- Container
- Pencil, popsicle stick or straw
- String
Method:
- Put water to boil and remove leaves from the stem of flower.
- Pour boiling water into container and measure out 3 tablespoons of borax per cup of boiling water.
- Stir in borax until dissolved.
- Suspend flower in solution so it doesn’t touch any of the sides or the bottom of the container.
- Allow flower to soak until desired crystal thickness has occurred (minimum of two hours, maximum of 24.
- Remove flower from borax solution and allow to dry.
- Enjoy!
The Petite Homestead 
I love this! What a great idea to glam up some fake flowers đź’ś
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Thank you! My husband has some serious allergies – this actually helps cut down on the dust, too! Beautiful and functional!
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Your crystal rose is absolutely beautiful!
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Thank you!
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Is there a reason you have to remove the faux leaves? Couldn’t you just use a deeper container and let the crystal grow on the leaves and stem as well?
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Great question! There’s no specific reason to other than preference. I didn’t want the crystals running down the stem or the leaves. If you use a deeper, larger vessel you will need to increase the amount of borax solution – and you may run into needing to secure the flower down so it doesn’t try to float before it crystallizes. If you try it out, let me know!
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Will do.
One more quick question. If you use yarn or twine will it be stiff when you pull it from the solution or still somewhat flexible until it dries?
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Anything that is submerged in the borax mixture will crystallize.
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Ok. Thanks.
I appreciate your help.
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Absolutely!
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When you remove the flower from the Borax mixture… how do you it to dry. Can you touch the rose or flower or should you keep it suspended without touching anything. Can I put it in a vase to dry?
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You can absolutely put them into a vase. I like to lay them on a paper towel to absorb any solution that might drip off. If you get any solution onto your skin I would wash the area with a gentle soap.
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