Colored Noodles

There are certain rites of passage for kids and crafts. First, they get crayons. Then it's markers and glue sticks. Followed by paint and good ol' school glue. When my oldest gets to use glue, she is so excited. I think she'd go around gluing all sorts of random things in our house if she could. She is also fascinated by the hot glue gun, but mom is mean and doesn't let her use it yet. :) Anyway, I have to find new things for her to glue because paper on paper gets boring (even to a 3-year-old) after awhile. My solution: colored pasta! It was so simple to make. I made a bunch of it and have it stored in baggies in our craft area so there's always something ready to be glued. Here's what you need:

small pasta (like macaroni or shells)
rubbing alcohol
liquid food coloring
small plastic food storage containers (1 per color)

 First put some pasta in each of your plastic bowls. I recommend filling about 1/3 full of pasta.

Then, fill each bowl with rubbing alcohol. You want some room in the bowl to be able to shake/mix the pasta, liquid and coloring, so don't fill it all the way! Just enough to cover the pasta.

 Next, drop liquid food coloring in each bowl. Some colors like blue and green don't take as much coloring as the yellow and red. I used about 10-15 drops of coloring per bowl because I wanted the colors to be nice and bright. Cover the bowls, give 'em a good shake to mix up and let it sit for 1-2 hours.

 Using a slotted spoon or a fork, get the pasta out of the liquid and dry on paper towels. I recommend paper towels over cloth towels because it will stain your fabrics. Let them dry. This will take several hours. You can add more pasta to your prepared liquids if you want more colored noodles.

The noodles glue very easily with white school glue to paper, chipboard, etc. I find for small fingers it works well to put some glue in a bowl or paper plate and let your little one hold the macaroni and dip it into the glue. It's a little easier than squeezing glue on each piece. Hope you have some fun!!