DIY Hula hoop

We wanted to make a huge marble run, the other day. Travis asked if we had any tubes around. I dug around in the garage and dug out a large amount of water tubing. We couldn't use it for the marble run because our marbles wouldn't fit in the tube so we had to come up with other ideas. We decided to try and make some hula hoops. We did this right after painting so Demi is a MESS! The shirt she has on is her "painting top". It is one of Travis' old shirts I use to cover her up when she is painting.

Here is my messy child adding handfuls of rice in her water pipe.



After many handfuls she decided to pour all of the rice in the pitcher into her tube.
She taped the ends together.

She asked if she could paint it . I didn't think paint would show up well on black so she added some tape to paint on.She painted the tape to decorate her hoop.
I came up with this project as a way to play with materials we had at our house. If I was purchasing materials to make this project I think I would have done it a bit different.
I think I would have bought a thinner hose. I would have looked to see if Lowe's sells a clear tube and if they did add color rice, paper confetti, ribbons, and such inside it. I would have looked for a color other than black. I would have either stuck something to the inside the tube (spot the ends meet) so it couldn't bend any at that spot or bought a thin hose connector to slip over the ends. If I couldn't find anything like that to work I think I would have added some hot glue to the ends or use a stronger tape to attach the ends.
I did think about all of this when we made it but I didn't feel any of that was worth the money or the effort. Plus doing that stuff would have made it my project NOT Demi's. Demi was having a blast and that is all I cared about. We had loads of fun. We used only stuff we had on hand, and after all, it is a hula hoop for a girl just turning 3 (she doesn't know how to use a hula hoop the right way. If she had an interest in hula hoops I am sure I would have done it different.

We made them almost a week ago and Demi has tossed it,walked on it, played in it, and played very rough (abused) it and it is still holding together. It is on our porch in very humid 90 deg. weather. I am very surprised it only has a tiny bend in it. I thought by now the ends would have slipped loose.