How life has changed!! Being a mum requires a whole new set of skills and extensive knowledge to our ‘previous lives’. These days I find myself Googling' how to colour rice' and' make your own Play-Doh' inbetween playing, cleaning, cooking, more cleaning etc!
Today I had my mother’s group over and decided to have a craft day with the kiddies. The six of us (plus six littlies!) have been meeting every Wednesday for almost three years now and still aren’t sick of one another’s company! But to tell you the truth, it is starting to get harder to entertain ‘the brood’ particularly on cold and miserable days. We generally try and steer clear of our homes on these kinds of days but play centre outings can become expensive (mainly because we all drink too much coffee!).
As I mentioned yesterday, I was all inspired to learn new things and came home from MOPS very enthusiastic and keen to create. I did a few searches on how to colour rice for art and craft but realised most methods required rubbing alcohol or white vinegar. Since I didn't have either in my pantry I decided to play around with my own recipe. I found it to be so good I thought I’d post a mini tutorial!
This activity is super easy to prepare and most of us would have these things already in our home so it's cheap to make! Depending on how you feel on the day, you could always get the kiddies to help out but just be careful with hot trays and food colouring! Both are recipes for disaster if you're not looking at all times!!
What you need…
- Large metal mixing bowl
- Dark spatula or metal spoon
- Food colouring
- White rice
- Measuring cup
- Measuring spoons
- Baking tray
- Paper towel
- Grease proof paper
- Pre-heated moderate oven
Step 1 – In your large metal mixing bowl add one tablespoon of cold water and a few drops of food colouring. Swirl around until evenly dissolved.
Step 2 – Add one cup of rice (I used white long grain rice) and use your spatula to stir until all the rice is coloured. Make sure you get all the rice up the sides of the bowl too. You can add a few more drops to the mixture if you’re after a more intense colour. Just keep stirring until well combined.
Step 3 - Place the mixture onto a piece of paper towel double-folded so it can absorb the excess dye and water. Let it rest for a couple of minutes then transfer rice onto a tray lined with baking paper.
Step 4 – Evenly spread the rice mixture over the baking paper so it’s a thin layer and pretty well separated. Put the tray into the oven for about 5 minutes. After the first 5 minutes, take the tray out and give it a little shake to loosen off the rice that might be sticking. If you think the rice is still a little wet return it to the oven for a further 2-5 minutes.
Step 5 – Once you’re happy the rice is dry you can remove it from the oven and pour it into a bowl to cool down. Once the rice is cold you can transfer the mixture to a plastic container for storage.
So what now? There's a whole load of art and craft activities you can do with coloured rice! We made a whole load of colours for mother's group today so we could make treasure jars where you put loads of goodies into a container and you have to find them! We also made i-spy bags (similar to treasure jars just in zip lock bags instead of glass) and the kids loved it! Whatever you do... have fun!
