The art of Macaroni

I LOVE doing arts and crafts with my daughter. Showing her how to make something fun from something so simple. She gets board easily, so I try to come up with lots of different things for her to do at home. Its either that or a constant barrage of playing candy-land and Mr. Potato head memory match (which she is really good at both.) I remember as a kid doing art with macaroni, and it was always in the original pasta color, never anything fun, unless it was manufactured that way. LOL. So I decided to make my own colored macaroni and this is how I did it. I don't think there is any perfect way to do it, but this is one method, and I found it very simple.

Supplies:
Cookie sheet
Pasta (any kind works)
Ziploc baggies (I used the sandwich size)
Food coloring (I used Wilton's)
Measuring spoons
Small breakfast spoon
Small dish
Water




1.) Pour pasta into a Ziploc baggie. Just eyeball the amount you want colored. there is no right or wrong amount. But if you want a for sure measurement do 1 cup of pasta (that's my estimation)

2.) In small dish put 1 tsp of water. You can use your breakfast spoon or something else, and dip into your food coloring. (I used the Wilton colors in the small little pots. Its a gel and it gives a better vibrancy of color.) Mix the color in with the water, breaking up all the food coloring chunks. If you don't get them all no biggy.

3.) Pour coloring into the Ziploc bag with your pasta.

4.) seal the Ziploc bag and toss the pasta with the color, massaging the bag to get any color chunks blended in.The pasta will absorb all the water you are using in short order. If you have more liquid, just add past to the bag and shake it up some more :-)

5.) Spread colored pasta on cookie sheet and set aside to dry. If you had to much liquid (as i did) then they will take a little longer to dry and they may stick together, so you will need to break them apart if you want.

6.) once its all dry create art to your hearts content!

My daughter thought this was a great time! She loves gluing anything that's not nailed down. In this image we were color grouping and counting. I wrote 1-10 on a piece of paper in the colors of the macaroni and she was gluing the same colored macaroni to the paper in the number indicated. Did that make sense? I hope so. you kids will love this!