Crafts are great, but you know what’s even better? Crafts where you already have ALL the materials sitting at home.
Seriously, half the battle for me is locating or buying all the supplies I need to make something.
I don’t know about you, but I struggle to do fun crafts or activities with my kids if I don’t already have all the supplies needed.
Who wants to spend 30 minutes trying to find random supplies for a 15 minute quick activity?
Ain’t no one got time for that.
I also hate the one-time use craft supplies, so as much as possible, I try to come up with multiple things to do with one supply.
This simple dyed pasta bracelet craft uses stuff almost everyone has at home or can at least pick up at the store with their groceries:
- dry pasta,
- food coloring,
- vinegar, and
- pipe cleaners.
(OK, pipe cleaners might be a tad difficult to find at every grocery store, but the big grocery stores definitely have them in the office supply section.)
In my last post, I showed you how to dye any kind of pasta in various colors using food coloring and vinegar (see here).
We then used the dyed pasta to make this rainbow pasta jar, which looked fantastic and was super easy to put together!
Today, we’re going to repurpose that same rainbow pasta to make dyed pasta bracelets.
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
I’ve created a 3-month activity planner just for busy parents like you! The plan includes 65 detailed, simple, and stress-free activities including: arts and crafts, sensory play, motor skills, and STEM–all using easy-to-find supplies.
Let me help make planning activities for your toddler easy, so you can skip the stress and get straight to the fun!
How To Make Dyed Pasta Bracelets
You’ll need the following supplies:
- dry tube-shaped pasta (such as rigatoni or ditalini)
- vinegar
- food coloring
- zip-top bags.
- pipe cleaners
Dye the Pasta
Color the pasta by combining a cup of dry pasta, a teaspoon of vinegar, and food coloring in a zip-top bag. Spread on a baking sheet and let dry completely (about 3 hours). See the full instructions in this post.
Make Dyed Pasta Bracelets
I set the different colors of pasta out on a tray looking nice and pretty with the pipe cleaners in the middle.
I personally get more excited to do crafts when the materials already look pretty, and I think my daughter is the same way.
Pipe cleaners are so much easier for little ones to do this project, but you have older kids, yarn or string will also work perfectly.
I explained that we were making pasta bracelets by threading the colored pasta onto pipe cleaners. That was pretty much all the direction I gave. I was excited to see what she would come up with.
Ella’s favorite color is red, so I should’ve known she would make an all red pasta bracelet first.
After she spent several minutes admiring her red bracelet, I convinced her to try making bracelets with the other colors.
I had her pick the colors she wanted to use and explained that she needed to repeat the colors over and over to make a pattern.
Here is what we came up with:
To finish the bracelets, just twist the ends together and trim the excess pipe cleaner with scissors.
I think they turned out beautiful!
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
I’ve created a 3-month activity planner just for busy parents like you! The plan includes 65 detailed, simple, and stress-free activities including: arts and crafts, sensory play, motor skills, and STEM–all using easy-to-find supplies.
Let me help make planning activities for your toddler easy, so you can skip the stress and get straight to the fun!