How to Grow a Borax Crystal Snowflake

How to Grow a Borax Crystal Snowflake Do real snowflakes melt too quickly? Grow a borax crystal snowflake, color it blue if you like, and enjoy the sparkle all year long! This can be made overnight. Borax Crystal Snowflake Project Experience Level: BeginnerTime Required: OvernightMaterials: Borax, water, pipe cleaner, clear jarKey Concepts: Crystallization, dissolving Borax Crystal Snowflake Materials You only need a few simple materials to grow borax snowflakes: StringWide mouth jar (pint)White pipe cleanersBoraxPencilBoiling waterBlue food coloring (optional)Scissors Lets Make Borax Crystal Snowflakes! The first step of making borax crystal snowflakes is to make the snowflake shape. Cut a pipe cleaner into three equal sections.Twist the sections together at their centers to form a six-sided snowflake shape. Dont worry if an end isnt even, just trim to get the desired shape. The snowflake should fit inside the jar.Tie the string to the end of one of the snowflake arms. Tie the other end of the string to the pencil. You want the length to be such that the pencil hangs the snowflake into the jar.Fill the wide mouth pint jar with boiling water.Add borax one tablespoon at a time to the boiling water, stirring to dissolve after each addition. The amount used is 3 tablespoons borax per cup of water. It is okay if some undissolved borax settles to the bottom of the jar.If desired, you may tint the mixture with food color.Hang the pipe cleaner snowflake into the jar so that the pencil rests on top of the jar and the snowflake is completely covered with liquid and hangs freely (not touching the bottom of the jar). Allow the jar to sit in an undisturbed location overnight.You can hang your snowflake as a decoration or in a window to catch the sunlight. Tips for Success Borax is available at grocery stores in the laundry soap section, such as 20 Mule Team Borax Laundry Booster. Do not use Boraxo soap.Since boiling water is used and because borax isnt intended for eating, adult supervision is recommended for this project.If you cant find borax, you can use sugar or salt (may take longer to grow the crystals, so be patient). Add sugar or salt to the boiling water until it stops dissolving. Ideally, you want no crystals at the bottom of the jar. Keeping a Borax Crystal Snowflake Crystal snowflakes make nice decorations or Christmas tree ornaments. Its possible to save the snowflakes to use from one year to the next, providing they are stored properly. Borax will react with water in the air to form a white layer. If this is undesirable, the best way to prevent it to store the snowflakes in a sealed container with a desiccant. Gently wrap each snowflake in tissue paper or a paper towel.Place the wrapped snowflake in a zipper-top plastic bag.Add a small packet of silica gel. These are included in many products, like shoes and electronics, so most people have them. Otherwise, silica gel beads may be purchased at craft stores.Seal the bag.

How to Deal With Stress at Work

How to Deal With Stress at Work Work stress is the great equalizer. High salary, low salary, doesn’t matter. The reasons might vary (deadlines, awful boss, workload), but everyone faces stress at some point in his or her career. There’s even a commonality in the source of these stresses: something is off balance. Too much to do, not enough time. Too many demands, not enough space to fulfill them to others’ expectations. Managing the stresses before they turn into performance issues or a huffy resignation letter is key- but how do you do that? Here are some common work stresses:Looming deadlinesToo much to do at onceOffice politicsWork/life balanceJob uncertaintyInsecurity/lack of confidenceFor all of these, it would be great to say that doing more yoga, or incentivizing yourself with personal rewards would solve the problem. However, while those are really excellent coping mechanisms for stress in general, they may not do much to address the underlying problems at work.Instead, take the time to confront the stresses head-on with a series of questions:What is causing this?Identify what’s behind the stress, and be realistic. It may be that you’re mad at your coworker for dropping the ball and leaving you with work, but is he or she really the source of your stress? Or is it that you have too many priorities to begin with, and the dropped ball was just one ball too many?What would my ideal situation be?While envisioning yourself on a beach with beverage of choice in your hand is nice, it’s not really the type of vision that would help here. This means taking a realistic assessment of what would make you less stressed and more fulfilled in your job. Would it be fewer meetings? More time built into your schedule for specific projects? A juggling of priorities with your manager so that you have the space to achieve your best results?Can I take steps to make this closer my ideal situation?Even seemingly un-budgeable stress factors, like hard deadlines or bos ses/colleagues who are just impossible to work with, can have some flexibility. It may be too late to change things for this round of deadline stress, but it’s not too late to come up with a plan for the next round. Maybe you’d like to have more advance notice on something, or maybe your boss would be open to restructuring your workload in the future so that there’s not such a crunch. If the stress is personality-based conflict with colleagues, maybe you can sit down with them to figure out the best way for you to mesh your styles on projects in the future. (Of course, this hinges on your ability to say, â€Å"I’d like to talk about how we can effectively work together on projects like this† instead of â€Å"dude, you’re driving me crazy.†)If not, what do I want to do to prevent this from being my normal?This is the â€Å"deep in your bones† check. If the disconnect between the ideal and the reality is just too big, or if makin g small changes won’t make your job any more fulfilling, it could be time to start looking around for a different job. The stress could be compounded by trying to push through inconvenient gut feelings. Having an exit strategy doesn’t mean you aren’t tough, or can’t hack it at your current job†¦think of it as an insurance policy for your sanity.