How to Dye Pasta For Crafts

Crafts for Children

Are you looking for simple and fun craft ideas for kids? Dying pasta is very easy, economical, and has a lot of uses in many different arts and craft projects for children. It is super fun to make and create art projects with your finished pasta. Kids just love the idea of making crafts with food too. Some simple craft ideas for colored pasta are easy crafts like making necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. You can also make mobiles, collages, and other homemade decorations with colored pasta. My favorite pasta projects involve using the colored pasta as a math manipulative for younger children. You can teach math concepts like sorting, patterns, adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplication, and even the order of operations concept can be taught with colored pasta. You will be amazed at how many craft projects you can come up with using colored pasta! This article will show you how to dye pasta for your craft projects.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Variety of Pasta Shapes
• Alcohol
• Food Coloring
• Zip Lock Baggie or
• Small Bowl
• Newspaper or Wax Paper
• Cookie Sheet

1. Craft Supplies

   Pour about 1/4 cup of alcohol and about 10 drops of food coloring in a zip lock baggie and mix thoroughly.

2. Easy Craft Ideas for Children

   Add 1 to 2 cups of pasta to the zip lock baggie and shake the mixtures vigorously to completely cover the pasta with the alcohol and food coloring mixture.

3. Making Pasta Crafts with Children

   Let the pasta mixture sit for one hour and then turn the baggie over and let it sit for another hour. You can let the pasta, alcohol, and food coloring mixture sit for as long as it takes to get the deepest color pasta you are looking for. If your pasta is not dark enough then just repeat steps 1-3 until your pasta reaches the desired shade of coloring you are looking for. The longer the pasta sits in the alcohol and food coloring mixture, the deeper the color will get.

4. Kid's Craft Activities

   Once your pasta has reached the desired color, drain the pasta and separate it into groups of like colors on a cookie sheet that has been lined with newspaper or wax paper. Let the colored pasta dry overnight. You can make your favorite homemade decorations after your colored craft pasta has air dried overnight.

Tips & Warnings

• Pasta comes in many shapes and sizes. Buy several shapes and sizes for your craft projects. Use the tube pasta like Ziti for stringing and fun shaped pasta like bow tie pasta, wagon wheel pasta, or alphabet letter pasta to create collages or math manipulatives.

• Always supervise children when using alcohol and food coloring. Do not leave young children alone with alcohol mixture. It can be dangerous if swallowed.

• Dyed pasta is not EDIBLE.

• Place the cookie sheet with the drying pasta in a dry, well ventilated area. The alcohol smell can be rather strong if you dye a large batch pasta.

Resources

• A to Z Teacherstuff
• Everything Preschool
• Curbly
• Crafty Moms
• TutusandTurtles
• Kids Turn Central
• Make and Takes