Colored Rice

Linking up with Leighann @ Living with 3 Hobbits and a Giant.  Feel free to join her Pinterest party to share what you've been up to!

So, I've kind of gotten addicted to Pinterest in the past month or so.  I gave up Facebook for Lent so I replaced my homepage with Pinterest...bad idea.  I think I waste even more time on Pinterest than I did on Facebook!  I mean, there's only so much you can do on Facebook, but on Pinterest you can go on for HOURS.

Anyway, I've found a lot of fun kid ideas and one of them was colored rice.  I thought it looked like a fun thing to do to give my girls something different to do.  I had considered a sand box in the past but seriously don't want the sand throughout my house so I thought the rice box idea might work out a little better.

So, I headed out to Walmart one day to buy my supplies.  You'll need rice (duh), food coloring and rubbing alcohol.  Apparently you can do this with water instead of rubbing alcohol, it'll just take longer to dry.  I bought the Walmart brand of cheap white rice (hint:  check the per unit pricing.  It was cheaper to buy the rice in 5lb bags vs 10lb bags!)

The original post I had saved on Pinterest said to use 2 Tbsp of food coloring for every 4 cups of rice.  uhhhh...no.  That was WAY too much.  I ended up doing 8 cups of red rice because I realized the amount of food coloring/alcohol I had put it the bag was enough for double the amount of rice.  I ended up doing 1 little container of food coloring and 2 Tbsp of rubbing alcohol for every 4 cups of rice.

Here are the steps:

1.  Put the food coloring and rubbing alcohol in a zip top bag.

2.  Add the 4 cups of rice (be sure the bag is SECURELY sealed before mixing it up!!) and mix it around to evenly distribute the color.  Try not to be too rough with it.  One of my bags, a Ziploc brand, actually tore open on the side of the bag.  I didn't think I was being too rough but maybe I was...

3.  Spread the colored rice out on a cookie sheet or other flat surface to dry.  It will dry within 10 minutes, maybe even less.

4.  Line your colors up into a pretty rainbow.  Ok, maybe that's just the OCD in me...But don't get used to it, as soon as the kids get their hands on it, it's all over!  :)

5.  Let your little princesses (or princes) play with it!  Be warned:  They will definitely get it all over the place.  I kept the bin outside for my girls to play with but was still annoyed with all the rice all over the place.  Oh well, they're kids and they're enjoying life!