Holiday How-To's

Are you looking for fun and educational science projects that you can do for the winter holidays? These seasonal activities and experiments will entertain you, plus you may learn something too.

Is there a secret special ingredient in those little packets of floral preservative? No! It's easy and economical to make your own Christmas tree or cut flower preservative, using ingredients found at home.

Do real snowflakes melt too quickly? Grow a borax snowflake, color it blue if you like, and enjoy the sparkle all year long! Color the sugar red and bend the pipe cleaner into a heart for Valentine's Day.

Here is a collection of several quick and easy recipes for ice cream you can make using snow.

A little chemistry can add a lot of ghastly, ghostly effect to your Halloween celebration. Here's a look at some of the top Halloween projects you can do that apply your command of chemistry.

Are you seeking fun science projects that you can associate with the 4th of July? Try this collection of science projects that involve fireworks and red, white, and blue.

Are you looking for science projects, experiments, and topics that you can tie in with the Easter holiday? Here's a collection of resources for you.

Add a wee bit of science to your St. Patrick's Day pranks and celebration with these fun chemistry projects.

Use chemistry to make gifts or to pamper yourself. These are instructions for scented and colored bath salts.

Bubbles are great fun for special events, especially kid's birthday parties. Save some pennies and make this bubble mix yourself. Most drugstores and pharmacies carry glycerine.

Color change reactions are classic fare for chemistry demonstrations. You can perform a Christmas chemistry demonstration in which the color of a solution changes from green to red and back to green. The Christmas color change can be repeated over and over again.

Chemistry and cooking share a lot in common! You can have some Christmas chemistry fun in the lab making these peppermint cream wafer candies.

This is cool colored chalk, for sidewalks or anywhere! Washes off with water, too.

How can you make your fire more festive? Toss on a few colored fire pinecones! Colored fire pinecones are extremely easy to make. All you need is one common household chemical.

Copper plate a holiday decoration as a Christmas ornament or for other decorative uses.

It's easy and economical to make your own cut flower preservative. Adding floral preservative will help keep your flowers beautiful much longer than if you simply filled a vase with water.

Making a simulant is a form of chemistry, right? Here are instructions for making your own edible fake barf. Ick!

Do you have any hard boiled eggs left over from Easter? Here's a fun project you can try. The egg in a bottle demonstration illustrates the concept of air pressure.

This results in a non-toxic, realistic stage blood.

This is a recipe for an edible fake blood which you can color blue or green for insects, spiders, and other arthropods, or perhaps for aliens.

Use common kitchen ingredients to make non-toxic fake flesh or organs for Halloween or theater performances.

These instructions will result in either clear or amber glass, depending on the cooking time used.

This is a gooey, gross variation of the traditional slime recipe, great for Halloween and other occasions requiring snot.

You can make fake snow using a common polymer. The fake snow is non-toxic, feels cool to the touch, and looks similar to the real thing.

Let's combine chemicals (ingredients) to make fake wounds suitable for Halloween or other special events.

Firecrackers are extremely easy and inexpensive to make yourself. Learn how to make homemade firecrackers and how to light them safely.

Fireworks are a beautiful and fun part of many celebrations, but not something you want kids to make themselves. However, even very young explorers can experiment with these safe underwater fireworks.

Use your chemistry to make a fizzy, scented bath bomb. Make them for yourself or give them as gifts!

Kick the traditional smoke bomb recipe up a notch to make a firework fountain that shoots purple flames with lots of smoke. This is a fun and easy homemade firework project.

Feeling crafty? If you can make Jello, then you can make your own gel air fresheners. It's easy and fun. You can choose your own scents and colors. For holiday fun, consider layering different colored gels or using seasonal fragrances (e.g., pine or cinnamon for Christmas).

You can make a glow in the dark pumpkin with a jack-o-lantern face using a common non-toxic chemical. The jack-o-lantern doesn't require carving or fire, shines in rain or wind, and lasts as long as your pumpkin. Plus, the glowing pumpkin looks really spooky!

What is better than regular slime? Slime that glows in the dark, of course! This is an easy and fun project that is suitable for kids.

Learn how to make a glow-in-the-dark crystal snowflake or other glowing holiday ornament. This is a safe and easy project that's great for kids and kids-at-heart. The crystal decorations are light-weight and inexpensive to make.

A Halloween jack-o-lantern filled with green fire is much more impressive than one lit with the usual candle. Here's how to produce this easy effect yourself.

It's easy to make brilliant green fire. This cool chemistry project only takes two household chemicals. Imagine a cauldron of green fire or maybe a jack-o-lantern lit with green fire for Halloween.

Your carved pumpkin or Halloween jack o lantern doesn't have to rot or mold before Halloween! Here is how to preserve a jack o lantern so that it will last for weeks instead of days.

The Old Nassau or Halloween reaction is a clock reaction in which the color of a chemical solution changes from orange to black. Here's how you can do this reaction as a chemistry demonstration.

Have you ever wanted to color fire? Here are simple, nontechnical instructions for making your own colored flames. Add extra interest to your fireplace or campfire!

If you want snow, but Mother Nature won't cooperate, you can take matters into your own hands and make snow yourself! This is the homemade version of real water ice snow, just like the snow that falls from the sky except without the need for clouds.

If you have laundry detergent, you can make a glow-in-the dark skull that you can put on your sidewalk or window that will be invisible during the day but will glow at night. Here's how you do it.

A magic crystal Christmas tree is an easy crystal project you can do for the holidays.

You can use safe, natural ingredients to make natural dyes to color Easter eggs. This is a fun Easter project that is fun and easy for the whole family to try this holiday season.

This is a fun chemistry-type decoration for July 4th or any time you want a colorful demonstration of density layers. Use different colored lamp oils and food colors for other holidays.

You can make pH indicator from poinsettia flowers, then use the indicator to make your own pH paper test strips.

This papier mache paste dries to a hard finish.

You can re-use the pop-up thermometer that comes with a frozen turkey. Here are easy instructions to re-set the thermometer, which you can then you for another turkey or for other types of poultry.

Here's a festive recipe for a singing cake. The cake sings while baking and then it is ready to eat!

Smoke bombs are the easiest and safest do-it-yourself firework project. You only need two inexpensive, non-toxic ingredients and it only takes minutes to make. Watch and learn how you can cook up a smoke bomb at home.

The 'chemistry' part of this lies in choosing a good liquid and sealant for your globe. Nontoxic and fun!

Snow made from water crystals melts at room temperature, but snow made from benzoic acid crystals will still be decorating your snow globe when the weather warms up. Here's how to make a snow globe by precipitating benzoic acid to make the 'snow'.

Learn how to make your own sparklers, for Independence Day or New Years Day fun. Use your understanding of chemistry to color the sparks.

You can make spooky fog come out of your Halloween jack-o-lantern using a little dry ice. Here's how you do it plus a trick for getting the best effect.

Sugar and string Easter egg ornaments are a fun family craft idea, plus you can include a lot of science in this project. You can make smaller hollow string ornaments to hang or put in baskets or you can make a large crystal egg to use as an Easter basket.

Turn a clear liquid into a red liquid, then back to clear again. This demonstration is commonly called turning water into wine or blood, and can be used to demonstrate acid-base indicators. It's a great idea for a Halloween activity.

Grow crystals on a holiday stocking to make a glittering crystallized decoration or ornament.

Use a chemical reaction to create a genuine silver ornament. The oxidation-reduction reaction silvers the inside of a glass ball, essentially forming a mirror inside the glass.

Make a non-toxic Christmas tree food that keeps your Christmas tree fresh, yet is safe for kids or pets to drink.

Grow borax crystals overnight to make a beautiful sparkling crystal heart. Use the borax crystal heart as a decoration or simply grow it as a fun crystal project.

Make your own crystal snowflake ornaments by crystallizing borax onto homemade paper snowflakes. These sparkling snowflakes can be made in any size to suit your decorating needs.

This is a fun color change chemistry demonstration, just right for Valentine's Day. Take a pink solution and watch it turn colorless upon heating. When the solution cools it becomes pink again.

A waterfall firework produces a long-lasting shower of glittering sparks, like a fiery waterfall. Here are instructions for making a waterfall firework yourself.

Leave a message that appears to be written in blood. A pretreated knife blade appears to cut into skin, but really just reacts with a chemical on the surface.