Easter Borax Crystals

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Grow your own crystals ~ Easter science experiment

We had so much fun creating our Shamrock Crystals that we decided to make an Easter version.  I love how our simple Easter Borax Crystals turned out, plus they make my kitchen window so cheerful!

Grow your own crystals ~ Easter science experiment

To make your Easter Crystals, you will need:

  • Pipe Cleaners
  • Jar
  • Fishing line
  • Pencil
  • Borax
  • Boiling water

Click here for full Instructions!

Grow your own borax crystals ~ Easter science experimentStart by bending simple Easter shapes out of your colorful pipe cleaners.  We chose to make Easter eggs and chicks.  However any shape will work.

Grow your own borax crystals ~ Easter science experiment

Next we placed our pipe cleaners into a solution of 3 cups of boiling water and 1/2 cup borax.

Detailed instructions for making these simple crystals can be found here.

Grow your own borax crystals ~ Easter science experiment

 

It takes a bit of patience for the crystals to grow.  We left ours in jars over night and woke up to crystal covered pipe cleaners.

Grow your own borax crystals ~ Easter science experiment

 

 

Grow your own borax crystals ~ Easter science experiment

Grow your own borax crystals ~ Easter science experiment

Grow your own borax crystals ~ Easter science experiment

These little guys turned out so adorable!  I love how the crystals sparkle in the sun.  It has been a bit grey and cloudy the last few days so it has been hard to get great pictures.

Grow your own borax crystals ~ Easter science experiment

Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love, and your will too.

For more Easter crafts for kids, check out our:

Paper Plate Sheep

Egg Carton Cross

Easter Borax Crystals

Funny Bunny Faces Game

Paper Chicks for cutting practice

Rag Rollers

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We have 2 sweet girls who love to be girly.  They love to dress up, put on high heals, have tea parties and go to dance class.  One of the numerous things that make them feel special is bouncy, curly hair.  Which is SO fun.  Both girls hair is normally straight, and I have tried foam rollers, a curling iron and finally rag rollers to create the perfect curls.  Rag rollers are the perfect solution for us.  They are easy, cheap and comfortable to sleep in.  This is how I curl the girls hair for dance recital and how I did it when they were flower girls.  I have had great results that last all day and even a few extra days.  If you are not looking for your curls to last a few days, then don’t worry about adding all the product, but my girls love having bouncy curls and if I can get them to last a few extra days with a bit of spray then I have 2 happy girls.

You will need strips of fabric, a spray bottle of water, mousse, and spray gel.  Cut your fabric (I used an old cotton sheet, but any light weight fabric will work) into strips that are about 6″ by 1″.  You may need to experiment with the length of the fabric, depending on how long your hair is.  Tie a knot in the center of each rag roller, this will help the hair have something to grab onto.

Apply a curl mousse to wet hair before beginning.  Keep the hair damp while you are working by using a spray bottle.  Work in small sections starting at the top of the head.

Wrap the section of hair around the rag roller.  The knot will help the hair to stay as you wind the hair around the fabric.  Tie the roller into a single knot as close to the scalp as possible.  Don’t worry a single knot will hold just fine, even while sleeping.

Be careful when you are rolling the ends.  I find that it is easiest to spray the very tip of the hair with water before I roll it.  This keeps all the stray end together and makes for a smoother curl when you take the rags out.

Continue rolling small strips of hair until you have a cute little head of rags.  I love how it looks at this point.

My girls have no problem sleeping on them and they stay in really well.  When they wake up in the morning untie and unroll each rag, but starting at the bottom this time.  The curls should look something like this when you take out the rags.  Don’t worry, I promise after the next step the curls will be beautiful!

After you have all the rag rollers out, pick up one curl spray lightly with a flexible spray gel and then GENTLY run your fingers through the curl.  Only pull gently at the hair if there is a tangle.  If you try to pull to hard you will either frizz the curl or straighten it and we are not going for either of those looks!

One last spray and your curls are all set to go.  So cute and bouncy and they look perfect hanging upside down from the monkey bars.  Sorry, we were having so much fun taking fun pictures I forgot to take a picture of how the curls really turned out.  You will just have to take my word on it.

This last picture was taken at the end of day two.  These curls were slept on, played in outside and in the gym and still going strong.  LOVE it!

I will be linking to these parties.

Easter Planter

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I love spring flowers, but it is still a bit early here to put them out.  I really wanted to switch out my Christmas winter planter by my front door, so this is what I came up with.  A few speckled eggs, moss covered rocks and a moss bunny.

I started transforming the eggs first.  This is how what they looked like when I started.  They were plastic, colorful and covered in glitter.  I enjoyed them for a few years, but now I am ready for a change.

I began by removing the ribbon and covering the glitter eggs with Gesso to give them a bit of texture.  It took a couple of coats of Gesso applied with a pallet knife to get the coverage and texture that I was looking for.

The painting took a few steps, but I LOVE how they turned out.  I first painted them with a soft blue, green and white.  Then the eggs got a brown glaze which brought out the texture of the Gesso.  Finally, I used a thin brown paint and a toothbrush to add a few speckles.

The bunny was next.  I found this ceramic little guy at a thrift store for 80 cents.  I began by covering a small area with hot glue and then pressing a handful of moss into the glue.  I continued until the entire bunny was covered in moss.  SO much better!

I covered the planter with a circle of cardboard and hot glued it in place, which gave me a base to build on.  I poked the wire of the eggs through the cardboard and hot glued them in place.  I also hot glued the moss bunny to the cardboard since it will be sitting outside on our porch.

Finally I covered all the exposed cardboard with moss and added a few moss covered rocks.  I love it, although I think that I love the speckled eggs the most.

I will be linking to these parties.

Catapult Fun

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OK, I thought I had all my packing peanut play in yesterdays post, but I forgot to show my sons catapult invention.  It was so fun watching him build and create.  This is a simple design that is really quick and easy to make.

All you need is a glue gun, a sturdy plastic spoon, vintage wooden clothes pin, and colored electrical tape.  Kaleb loves his low temperature glue gun and I love watching his creative process.  He squeezed the hot glue into the center of the clothes pin and inserted the handle of the spoon.  Once it was cool, he wrapped the glued area with colored electrical tape.

So quick and easy.  He made 5 of his catapults so we could all go outside and shoot packing peanuts into a tub of water.

Since packing peanuts are light weight we found that they flew better when we crumpled them into a ball.  The kids has lots of fun playing, and soon they were creating games to see who was the best shoot.  Even my little toddlers got into it by carrying packing peanuts on the catapult and dumping then into the water.  So cute.

Packing Peanut Play

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What to do when you score 2 giant bags of packing peanuts for FREE!

Craigslist is a great place to look for free packing material.  I scored this set from a local health food store.  This bag was full of 2 different kinds of biodegradable packing peanuts and a few Styrofoam ones at the bottom.  LOVE IT!

The kids love playing in the peanuts.  I filled a large under the bed storage container with them and the kids had a blast.  Even my “big” ones loved jumping in.  I left this up for a few weeks, defiantly a hit!

Notice the cute colored people that Bree is holding.  The girls really enjoyed coloring their packing peanut creations, so cute!

Cornstarch packing peanuts do wonderful things in water.  We decided to conduct an experiment to see how many cups of packing peanuts would dissolve in 8 cups of water.  Kaleb made the chart and wrote down all our guesses.

We started out shaking the jar, but soon realized that we were creating too much foam.  We ended up mixing them in with a spoon which seemed to work better.  The end result was amazing.

We ended up being able to dissolve 135 cups of packing peanuts in 8 cups of water.  I am convinced we could have kept on going if our container was bigger.  It takes very little moisture to break them down.

Next we created wonderful structures.  Simply dip your finger in water, touch it to the packing peanut and then press 2 peanuts together.  The kids had a blast doing this.  You can buy special packing peanuts at kid learning stores, but these free peanuts work the same way.  You can also purchase packing peanuts at office supply stores.  Hours of endless fun building and creating.

After they finished building they had this great idea to see how fast it would take to dissolve in water.  I was excited that they wanted to dissolve it because I was getting worried that I wold have to fit this wonderful structure in with my spring decorations:)  If you look closely you can see a man (no face), a giraffe, a large spider and a creeping Caterpillar.

Squishing slimy, gooey packing peanuts.

Kaleb enjoyed making flying “worms” by squishing his hands together.

Next the kids wanted to know what the difference between the Styrofoam and biodegradable peanuts so I set up another experiment.  The jar on the right contains the biodegradable peanuts and the jar on the right is the Styrofoam peanuts.  After some fun shaking the kids noticed that there was no change in the Styrofoam jar.

Since the Styrofoam peanuts don’t dissolve in water they are perfect for using as beanbag filler.  They are larger than the regular bean bag filler, but the kids don’t mind and it squishes down pretty quickly.  The perfect cheap fix to fluff up those flat beanbags.  Simply unzip the beanbag cover, there is usually 2 zippers and dump in the styrofoam packing peanuts.  It is important to make sure you are using Styrofoam.  If your beanbag ever gets wet, you would end up with a sticky gooey mess with the biodegradable variety.

Grab your sunglasses, your favorite book and go enjoy the spring sunshine!

All this play took place over a few weeks.  The kids love it!  We are giving the leftover peanuts to my sister-in-law to use in her preschool classroom sensory table.  When I was picking up the bags, I’m sure the lady thought I was nuts.  She was probably thinking “who wants 2 large bags of packing peanuts and 2 large bags of bubble wrap?”  I do!  She defiantly blessed our house!  Now what to do with all the bubble wrap!  LOVE IT!

Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love.

I will be linking to these parties.