How to make crystals

Today I want to show you how to make crystals. I was interested in crystals because I found some inside an Igneous rock in my garden.

This article tells you all about crystals and how to make them http://chemistry.about.com/cs/growingcrystals/a/aa012604.htm
It's so easy,  quick and just involves mixing kitchen ingredients with water to make a saturated solution. THE RESULTS ARE VERY GOOD!!!!!!!!

The pictures below show the steps and results. 

This is me preparing all the ingredients in our kitchen 

This is me making a saturated solution with sugar 

You need to make sure all the sugar dissolves

Heating the solution makes it absorb more sugar

I did the same with the bicarbonate of soda

This is me showing you that you need to weigh down the string  

This is my crystal garden on the left and my crystal on a string on the right

This is the size of the crystal (it only took one day), my finger shows the scale

We are now going to make a BIG crystal by using one little crystal above,
you can learn how to do this on the bottom link 

This is the recipe using bicarbonate of soda, you can also use salt or sugar.
http://www.chemistry.co.nz/growing_crystals_string.htm  

I also used sugar to make a crystal garden or geode (this takes longer) but I will post the results when I have them.

I am now planning to make a BIG! crystal by using my little crystals as "seed crystals" if you want to do this have a look at this link http://chemistry.about.com/od/growingcrystals/a/seedcrystal.htm