How to Dye Pasta

As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, we’ve been talking about rainbows at our house.  Since my kids are always wanting to make crafts and projects, I find myself thinking of fun things we could do together.  I had recently bought some pasta on sale for really cheap.  I always have food coloring in the pantry, so I thought how fun it would be if we dyed some pasta!  So if you’ve ever wondered, how to dye pasta, this is what you do.

Since I knew we were going to use these for crafting I wanted to make sure the pasta wasn’t super small.  So pick the size and shape you like (or that you already have in your cupboard) and put about 1/2 cup of dry pasta into a cup.  We were making 6 colors so I used about 3 cups of dried pasta.  Once the pasta is in the cups, cover the pasta with alcohol.  The rubbing alcohol that you can get in the first aid section of the grocery store.  Use enough alcohol to cover the pasta.  Then add your drops of food coloring to the alcohol.  I used 4 drops of each color and then mixed it up a little so it distributed evenly. (mix red and yellow to make orange, and blue and red to make purple)

 Let your pasta soak in the colored alcohol for about 8 hours (or overnight).  Then drain all the liquid out of the cups and lay the pasta on a paper towel to dry.  DO NOT rinse the pasta with water. (I learned this the hard way, it will make your pasta crack and some of the color to fade.)  Make sure and spread the pasta out in a single layer so it can dry.

Once the pasta is dry (it took a couple hours), you are ready to make some master pieces with your kiddos!

Now because I am a curious person, I decided to try 2 different ways of dying pasta.  I had heard that you could use either alcohol or vinegar.  So I decided to give them both a try.

I followed the same steps that I used with the alcohol and used vinegar instead.  What I found was that the pasta would soak up the vinegar and make the pasta really soft.  I only let the pasta sit in the vinegar for about 5 hours (I saw that the vinegar level had gone down and I was going to need to add more).  So I drained the vinegar off the pasta and laid the pasta on a paper towel.  It took a full day and half of the next day for the pasta to completely dry.  I had to move the pasta around on the paper towel so that all sides would be able to dry.  I did notice though, that the pasta was more vibrant in color with the vinegar.  But it was stinky too! 🙂

The kids loved all the fun colors and got to work picking out their favorites.

I loved that this was a fun activity to do with the kids and I didn’t have to run out to the store to buy supplies.  I found everything I needed right in my pantry!

Let the creativity begin!

I also want to thank the sponsors this week!  We have an awesome giveaway going on right now that I would love for you to enter. $100 Amazon gift card plus $50 in awesome stuff!

Happy Crafting!

Liz