Monday, September 9

Dyed Pasta Busy Bag

Don't worry guys, just a couple more to go. I expect you all to have a nice pile of busy bags by the end of the week. Today we're adding a bag with lots of possibilities - dyed pasta!


All you need for this bag is pasta, rubbing alcohol, and food coloring. I picked pasta with big holes in case we decide to make necklaces or something. But you can use any fun shapes!




I started by dividing my pasta between five ziploc bags (to make 5 different colors). I put a squirt of food coloring in each bag and enough rubbing alcohol to cover the pasta about halfway.


Then I shook the bags up to mix the color around and laid the bags flat (the pic below is when I first shook them. the take on more color as they soak). I let them sit about an hour and then flipped the bags over. After another hour I checked them to see how the color was looking and ended up shaking them around and letting them sit a while longer. You'll probably want to take them outside to soak because the alcohol gets a little stinky. Once I was happy with the color I dumped the pasta out onto cookie sheets lined with newspaper and left them out on the patio to dry for about 24 hours.


Once they were completely dry I dumped them all into a big ziploc bag. There are so many things you can do with this bag! You can string the pieces to make necklaces, or practice sorting by colors or shapes, or just dump the pieces in a cake pan and scoop them with measuring cups & spoons.


As soon as these were done B was ready to play! So far his favorite is using salad tongs to pick up the pieces.


For this bag I bought two boxes of pasta for $1.50 each and two bottles of rubbing alcohol for $1 each (I already had the food coloring). So my total cost for this bag was $5.

2 comments:

  1. Great idea! Can i substitute alcohol wit anything else? Or will it work if i just omit the alcohol?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't say for sure, but I dyed my rainbow rice using vinegar. I assume that would work for this as well, but I'm guessing the colors wouldn't turn out as vibrant. Let me know if you give it a try! :)
      http://www.morelikehome.net/2013/09/rainbow-rice-busy-bag.html

      Delete

Subscribe