Lately Alden and Kato have been listening to They Might Be Giants “Here Comes Science” on double-triple repeat. There’s a line that has particularly captivated Alden, which goes, “Carbon in its ordinary form is coal/Crush it together and diamonds are born” – and has been asking if she can crush some carbon to make diamonds (with accompanying hand motions). She clearly hasn’t heard my wild-eyed rant about diamonds.

I told her about a week ago that making diamonds takes a really long time and a lot of crushing underground, and that it’s pretty much impossible to do with just your hands. I suggested the alternative of growing crystals and she was immediately on board. Apparently, all that glitters is not diamonds, and it doesn’t really matter. That’s my girl! After dilly-dallying for a week or so about finding the instructions on how to do it online, we happened upon a crystal growing kit at our very favorite best store in all of the USA that happens to be just around the corner, Twigs and Teacups. (BTW, Twigs is for sale – boo hoo! If anyone is looking for a new and rewarding enterprise in some prime real estate in downtown Chestertown, check it out. This place is gold. REAL gold.)

You may have noticed that Alden is moping in the background of this photo. It is not because she has decided she’d rather make diamonds than crystals. No, it is because I told her MooMoo didn’t need to be in the picture, because the picture wasn’t about MooMoo. So, I took it again at her insistence. Say hi to MooMoo.

The kit comes in a lovely translucent yellow box (we chose Topaz Gold as our crystal color, though they come in all colors) full of little pouches of stuff. The directions say age 10+, so please recognize that I am being a totally irresponsible parent here. Kato immediately went for the instruction manual…

…while Alden pored over the tiny mystery pouches.

After a thorough look at the instructions, Kato declared that he wanted to grow the rhombohedral crystals.

As much as I tried to convince him that we didn’t actually have any say in what shapes we got, he’s still convinced.

The first step was to fill the “mixing container” with 70ml of warm water. It seemed completely stupid to me that the ml markings were in barely visible increments of 20. Perhaps 10 year olds have better eyesight and estimating abilities than I do.

So I took a marker and marked off where I guessed 70 might be. Alden got to pour while it was Kato’s job to yell stop when we got to the line.

And then Kato got to pour in the yellow crystal mixture while Alden stirred.

The directions say you need to use “warm water” and that you should stir until all of the crystal mixture has dissolved. Well, we probably could have crushed carbon into a diamond in the amount of time that it took for us to dissolve the crystal mixture. Kato valiantly stirred and stirred and stirred.

I eventually gave in and microwaved it (twice!) before it was fully dissolved.

The next step was to place the stones upon which the crystals would grow.

Two stones came with the kit, and luckily one had pink flecks in it, which made Alden happy.

I make no guarantees for other versions of this kit, should any of you choose to purchase for your own (potentially pink-minded) kids. Though I believe there is a kit that will grow pink crystals.

Up next was to pour the crystal mixture over the stones. I decided I would do this particular job, though must admit that I had several spills while trying to manage being a photographer and pourer at the same time.

Then we were to put the lid on the little container and let it sit for a whole hour.

We were supposed to put aside some of the crystal mixture for later, which I had left out on the counter while we were working. Being that the mixture probably had some toxic chemicals or something in it (ages 10 and up! ages 10 and up, it said!) I wisely decided that I should probably put it up out of reach until the hour was up, just in case one of the kids decided to climb up on the counter while we were waiting. So, I wrapped it in some tin foil and put it out of reach on top of the refrigerator.

After the hour was up, we returned, and fetched the last bit of crystal mixture down to sprinkle over the rocks.

I even made Alden wash her hands afterwards as a precaution (see what a conscientious irresponsible parent I am?). And then we were to put the mixture (with the lid off) up on a shelf somewhere where no one would bother it. I put it right next to our mortar and pestle, which no one has bothered since the day we got it.

With the amount of liquid that needed to evaporate, I figured it would be months before we saw any crystal action, but this morning when I checked there were already some signs of growth.

Exciting!

So, we will keep you posted on how this whole endeavor works out. For those of you who don’t have an awesome store like Twigs & Teacups around the corner from you, you can purchase the very same crystal growing kit here, though it’s gotten some bad reviews from those people not bold enough to microwave the solution to fully dissolve the mixture.

As an endnote: when we were all finished, Matthew came in and we had the following conversation:

Matthew: “What was in that tin foil on top of the refrigerator?”
Robbi: “The crystal-growing chemical stuff.”
Matthew: “Why was it on top of the refrigerator?”
Robbi: “So that if for some reason the kids decided to do something with it, they couldn’t.”
Matthew: “Do something, like what?”
Robbi: “I don’t know – eat it, or something.”
Matthew: “Oh, well, I ate some of it.”
Robbi: “What?! Why would you eat it?!”
Matthew: “I don’t know. It was in tin foil. And it was on top of the refrigerator.”

Oh man.