Food noodle/rice crafting

Unplugged group project-food
I wasn't going to post this because I didn't get time to look at all the unplug projects others did last week, I was having a bad day today, and three my project is not what I had planned.

I have decided that I am going to post this and I will check out people's unplugged projects tonight or tomorrow. If I get busy and run short on computer time I will catch up on my husbands day off this week (I think that is Wed).

Pasta and rice art.

Homemade paste, dyed pasta, and rice.
Cardboard from cereal box and 2 children to craft.
Yes that is tons of tiny rice and glue all over the table.



The one below Travis did. I thought it turned out nice.below is one of many Demi made.


We then came up with the idea to make some noodle critters with pipe cleaners.


We made many strange critters below is a picture of several of a few of them. The baby started fussing so I didn't get a picture of them all.

The how and why of what we did.

This week I wanted to do some potato prints shirts or cards, baking cookies, food ABC's, ice-cream making, bean mosaics, and tons of other fun ideas. I didn't have supplies or time to do any of the projects I wanted to do. I dug around in our food shelves. All I found in food supplies to craft with is pasta and rice. I have this huge bag of white rice that is just for crafting. I use it to make beanbags, sensory play, writing trays, and other school/play stuff but I couldn't think of anything to do with rice at first. After finding several boxes of pasta I decided to dye pasta so we colored some of it by tossing a few handfuls in a small coffee can and add a splash of rubbing alcohol and some food color. We then shook the containers to color all the noodles. I was worried that the noodles might be a bit large for art on paper so I decided to give coloring rice a try. I wasn't sure that dyeing rice would work because I had never heard of anyone doing it but in a panic for a fun craft I felt I should give it a try. We put some rice (1 or 2 cups) in a coffee can, added a small splash of rubbing alcohol (about 1 or 2 tsp), and a few drops of food coloring (about 5-10. Then shook it up. I ended up with very wet looking rice. I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to do the project so I turned my oven on and once it was preheated to 250-350 I shut OFF the oven, dumped our wet rice on a cookie sheet and stuck my rice in the warm oven (I did the same with the pasta). I was worried that I might start a fire putting rice covered in alcohol in the oven if the oven was on so I made sure it was turned off. Putting it in a warm oven worked out perfect. In a very short time (under 15 minutes) we had dry colored rice to craft with. My next problem was how to attach them to paper. I was worried that Elmer's glue wouldn't be thick enough to hold pasta to paper. I decided to make up some homemade flour paste. I just tossed a few cups of flour in a bowl, added a little water, mixed with a whisk to make a thick paste. It looked like a thick pancake mix when I finished. I then was worried that paper would be to thin to hold this paste and pasta. I decided to cut up food boxes to do our art on. Travis and Demi covered the box pieces with paste by spreading it on thick with a spoon. Then they decorated with noodles and rice. It turned out a lot better than I would have ever guessed. My children don't know I didn't plan this craft. They had so much fun the crankiness went away and we had a fun afternoon.

OH! After the noodle/rice mosaic we cut some pipe cleaners and used the noodles to design some critters. We just stuck noodles on pipe cleaners and bent them to make strange looking pets. Demi had fun playing with her little critters after we finished making them all. Travis made some but I didn't get any pictures. He joined in the critter making late and the baby was fussing so I didn't get to take pictures of his.