Coloring pasta is easy to do and gives kids something bright and beautiful to work with. Once the pasta is colored and dried, necklaces or charms can be made by stringing yarn.
Supplies for Colored Pasta:
- Dried Pasta – any pasta works, but for stringing you will need tubed pasta. I used macaroni, penne, and wheels.
- Food coloring
- Rubbing alcohol
- Plastic baggies
- Paper towels
- String or Yarn
Place your dried pasta in a zip plastic baggie. Pour in 3-4 drops of your food coloring. Pour in 1 Tablespoon of Rubbing Alcohol. Now seal the bag and shake it all together. Make sure each piece of dried pasta gets coated. Pour your colored pasta out on paper towel lined trays. Food coloring can stain, so be careful. You’ll want it completely dry before you start to work with it again, as you don’t want any color to drip. I put mine out in the sun to dry faster.
Get out your string or yarn and cut the length of a necklace for your child. Then tie a knot at one end, big enough that the pasta will stay there. I like to tie pasta in my knotted end so the others won’t fall off. I also like to put a little tape around the top of the string so it won’t fray as you string.
Have your child string on pasta, all sizes and shapes. You can introduce patterns or do counting with your child.
Once they’ve hit the end of their string, tie the two sides together for a necklace around your child’s neck. They can even make bracelets or little charms to hang in their rooms.
I’ve also used this colored pasta for gluing onto things like frames or collages. There are similar projects you can do with coloring using rice or salt too. Have fun making these colors come alive.
Written by Marie LeBaron
Marie LeBaron is the founder and managing editor of Make and Takes. Always having a love of crafts, she enjoys getting messy with glue and glitter. There’s always some sort of project going on, her kitchen counter is often cluttered with crafts. When she’s not crafting and creating with her kids, she loves to run, read, and blog! Read other posts by Marie
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m going to try this today. Thanks!
We made nature boxes today, and are waiting for the rain to stop to go fill them up. This looks like another great activity. What does the alcohol do? And do you always have to clean your kitchen before you begin your photo shoots, or is it always that immaculate?
Cool.. I have all of this stuff already at home. I have no excuse not to make these this week! Thanks for the inspiration!
Oh! Such fun, bright colors!
This brings back so many good memories, this was one of my mom’s fav crafts to do with us. I have not done it yet with my girls, will have to try!
What a great idea. I have made pasta necklaces once before, but haven’t colored them yet, I’m going to try this out! So fun to meet you today.
Janel – For the colored pasta, the alcohol helps the food coloring dry faster so the noodles don’t get soggy from being wet. And my kitchen is not that clean. I just shove everything out of the camera shot :)
love this idea! so easy, so cute!
Thank you so much for this idea. We had a playdate today and the girls really loved making these! My daughter is still wearing her necklace.
How cool! I have been wondering how to do this! I think my daughter would have a lot of fun with this! Thanks! :)
You’re AWESOME! THanks for sharing your knowledge. My son just came home with one of these necklaces the other day and I was wondering how they colored the pasta! It’s almost as if you read my mind!! ^_^ Have a great day!
Thank you so much! My son and I made these today and he loved it!
Hi Marie,
Thanks for the wonderful idea. Anything colorful is magic for the kids! We made these today – it was a nice way to pass the afternoon since my husband is out of town for work! Lovely, lovely, lovely!
Is rubbing alcohol 100%? Just wondering because I don’t think you can buy it here in the UK.Do you know if anything else does the job?!
Viv – For the Rubbing Alcohol, mine was only 70% and I found it in my medicine aisle. I haven’t ever tried an alternative, but I just googled it and found a site saying you can use white vinegar instead. I don’t know if that will work, but worth a try. The whole point of the alcohol is to help the liquid coloring dry fast, not making the pasta go soggy. Let me know if you use the vinegar and how it comes out. Thanks for asking.
ty needed to know how to color rice for grandsons turkey project for school
Terrific article and its something I can do with my girls tomorrow. The instructions are great. Thanks!
thanks for the article we just made some now. looking forward to it drying and having fun with it. it’s too cold to put outside to dry, I considered putting it in the oven on warm but thought it might be too stinky with the alcohol? guess we will just have to be patient and wait!
I love this idea too! I have been doing it for a while. My son, now 4 every year so far has made a large string to decorate our Christmas tree. I have been saving them in tupperware and just packing them away with our other holiday items and they keep just fine. It is our way of “stringing popcorn” since he is to young. My youngest son 1 1/2 got to join in the fun this year with a little help. They look great on the tree to, the big lights shine right through them! He will show everyone who walks through the door.
Gonna do this tomorrow with my friend and her little girls. It’s just too darn hot outside so we will be doing a craft. Looks like I will be wearing a pasta necklace to church on Sunday.
I had seen pasta crafts on grandparents web site and I haven’t been able to find it again please help
White vinegar does work too…used to use it when I was teaching
do you know of anything that you can use on the noodles to keep them from getting soggy after you have made your project….
Maeve and I just did this as a snowstorm forced us to be inside all day. It was great, Maeve loved it and will give both her teachers a beautiful necklace on Valentine’s Day. Thanks for the tips!
This is something that I plan on doing this weekend. I absolutely love the first image as the pasta looks bright and vibrant. The finished necklaces also look amazing. Thanks again!
Attempting to do this for my granddaughter. About how much pasta do you use in each bag w/ the color & alcohol?
That is a great question. You can really put in as much pasta as you’d like, but for the amount of liquid I have on the post, it’s for 1 cup of dry pasta. If you want to color more pasta at one time in one color, then you will need to just increase the amount of liquid.
I just googled “dying past noodles” and of course this post was the first result. I should have known to come to you first for something so crafty to do with my kids :) sound like you’re enjoying Seattle!
I’m a school teacher of 5 year-olds and this will be perfect for them to develop their fine motor skills. I’ve wondered for a while how to make it. Thank you.
Loved this. In order to speed it up I spread out the colored pasta on paper towels on a cookie sheet and put it in a 250 degree oven to dry it. Took about 10 minutes. Also, I wanted to have deeper colors, so I doubled the food coloring and kept the alcohol to 1 Tbs. My daughter’s necklace is now in jewel tones. Will do this again once we use up all the pasta we made. Thanks
I usually just use a teaspoon of water and mine don’t go soggy. Then I dry them overnight. I’ve also used water, white tempera paint powder and glue to make white macaroni for snow.
I appreciate seeing this on your website,as I have forgotten just how neat this activity for kids is. Thanks for posting.