Our art project this time is making our own colored sand.
A few weeks ago I saw on TV a lady color sand (maybe it was salt) in a glass and then stuck a tiny candle in it to make a decoration for the house. At the time this show was on I was trying to put the baby down for a nap so I wasn't watching it close enough to know if it was sand or salt she was coloring. I didn't hear what she used to color it. I am trying to remember, I think she might have put a spoon of paint in the cup of sand and stirred it with a spoon. It was a show on the DIY channel but I am not sure what show it was. I know it must have been one on in the late afternoon (after out school day is over) because I don't watch TV early in the day. Anyway, after seeing that I decided to give a try at coloring sand . I figured I had nothing to loose I have lots of sand (2 sandboxes full). I have food colors and paints. I use food colors to dye things a lot so I thought first I would try food colors and if that didn't work I would try paint. We poured some sand in bottles and added some food coloring. We used about 1/2 cup of sand and 10 drops of food color but I am sure less food color or more sand in the bottles would give lighter colors and more food color will give darker colors. I used 1/2 cup because that is the first measuring cup I found and I used 10 drops because it sounded like an easy number to remember. LOL! After adding sand and food color in the bottles we put the lids on and shook. We ended up with some very colorful sand. Our sand was NOT white sand. It was natural tan colored play sand and I had no problems getting it to change color. I was very happy with how simple this project was!
Here is Travis making yellow sand.
Demi making purple sand (we used neon purple food coloring).
Zee always looks so interested in what her brother and sister are doing.
Picture of our sand. We made pink, blue, yellow, green, and purple so far.
Poor Zee! I wouldn't give her sand because I knew she would try to eat it. Next time we do this I will make sure to have an extra bottle of sand for her to shake. |We did this late at night and I never did this before so I didn't take the time to think of including Zee.
Here is a picture of them all at the table crafting nicely together. OK Zee is playing with baby toys but soon she will be involved with all our projects. Can you see Travis holding up his project? I think Travis caught the crafting bug (maybe he is a bit like his mom)!
I was brave and took video of us trying this project. I thought it would be neat if it worked and my children responded with a WOW. The WOW response didn't happen but it will show family and friends a small clip of our day. It will take me most of tomorrow to upload the video clips. I will share them soon as I get them uploaded to you tube.
4 comments:
Oh Amber I am so glad you are back. I have a question about the sand. How do you think it turned out? Because I would love to do that with the boys. It looks like a lot of fun.
Oh cool! Z looks itching to have at it for sure!
I am jealous..no store near us has good sandbox sand, so we are empty!
And it has been nice out. :-(
wow I have been so behind at reading blogs. You have been doing soo much with D. I feel zahara hasn't been doing much. I love all your fun letters activities and crafts. WHat fun.
Heather, the sand turned out just like the colored sand we bought. It was very simple to do. Even Demi didn't have any problems making it herself. I do wonder if it gets wet if the sand will bleed colors. I took the sand outside so I don't have to worry about my house being rainbow colors if it gets wet and runs. I am sure it is only a matter of time before Demi adds water to it and we find out the results. It is last years sand so I won't feel bad dumping it to fill a hole in our yard and getting some new sand if it bleeds and gets messy.
Kate, I thought NJ would have the best choices of play sand because you have so much sand in your state. We had some BAD play sand last year. It turned my children ghost white when they played in it. I am glad that stuff is gone. I wish I knew what type of sand that was so I don't make the same mistake this year but I didn't write the name down.
Yasmina,
I went a month without doing much at all with Demi. Zee was very needy and Travis needed help with his school. Life got so busy at my house poor Demi was getting the bad end of it all. I felt sick over it and decided I needed to do something so she didn't start feeling like the ignored middle child.
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