Today I’m going to share with you a super easy Halloween DIY. DIY Borax Crystal Skulls are more time than technique so they are a great DIY for just about anyone, so let’s collect our materials.
Materials
20 Mule Team All Natural Borax 65 Ounce
Water
Stockpot (large enough to cover the skull)
Tongs (optional)
Skull
I happened to have some real skulls that my husband found while hiking but a ceramic one would work well too. A ceramic blank like crafts stores sell to paint would also work great. They are not super slick so the crystals will cling well and they are heavy enough to sit down in the water. You can crystal pretty much anything as soon as it had a little texture and doesn’t float up out of the water.
Directions
In a stock pot mix, a solution is 1 part Borax to 4 parts water. You can mix as much or as little solution as you need. I used a full box of Borax to 1 gallon of water
Heat the solution until the borax dissolves. The Borax has the consistency of powdered laundry detergent so you will know it has dissolved when the powder is no longer visible. This will not require a rolling boil just hot enough to dissolve the powder.
Next, place your object in the pot and wait…
I left mine to soak overnight so this is the result in about 12 hours. But if you do this in the morning you can just check it through the day and remove it when it has achieved the desired level of crystals.
Most likely when you go to take your object out it will have crystalized to the bottom of the pot. If this is the case just turn your burner back on until the crystals at the bottom dissolve a bit and you can pull it loose. You can grow your crystal in any container but I like to leave mine in the stockpot so I can loosen the bottom crystal more easily. You could also run hot water over the bottom if you use another type of container,
The Results
And that’s it, DIY Borax Crystal Skulls!
But you don’t have to stop there. If you reheat your Borax solution the crystals will dissolve again and you can add another item. If you do this several times you may want to add a little more borax to keep the ratio of the solution. I have found the higher the borax content the larger the crystals will grow.
I tried again with a spider which grew within about 3 hours. Maybe because it is more of an open structure. It was more fragile getting it out in one piece.
Tips
From experience, don’t let your pot run over or drip your solution everywhere if you can help it. As the solution evaporates you will have crystals growing all over your kitchen like in the photo below. If this does happen don’t worry just heat a small pot of clean water and pour it over the crystals and wipe quickly with a clean towel.
Because the borax is dissolved by heat I don’t recommend putting your crystal items in the direct sun or where it is really hot since they will begin to disintegrate. Conversely, if you are done with your crystal object and want to return it to its original condition just heat some clean water and submerge it again to dissolve.
Hope you give these DIY Borax Crystal Skulls a try for Halloween but I can also imagine all sorts of other shapes that could be used for Christmas and other holidays.
If you’d like to see more Halloween DIYs here are a couple more, Click an image below.
