How to dye pasta for play

Today I decided to dye some pasta for Thomas so that he can play stringing games and such with it!  This is so simple to do and all you need are a few things that  you more than likely have kicking about the house anyway!


You will need:
Pasta shapes
Selection of food colourings
Vinegar
Pots

You simply mix your food colouring, I used about 2 teaspoons worth per 15 pasta tubes, with a tablespoon of vinegar.  Then you add the pasta, leave it for a few minutes and hey presto fun coloured pasta for playing with!  You will need to leave the pasta to dry out overnight but it doesn't go soft or soggy.

I had red, blue and green food colouring by Dr Oetker and although the red and blue dyes took within minutes I had to leave the green one for about half an hour and even then it isn't as vibrant as the other 2 colours.  I used 15 tubes of each as I suspect these will get crushed, lost or eaten within days but I plan to add 15 plain pasta tubes as well as a yellow option!

I also choose to use pasta tubes so that we can play different games with them, such as stringing, putting them into a clear tub to act as a colourful musical instrument or sticking onto a picture.

Have you made any cheap and easy DIY games for your children?

x

Strawberry Picking Fun

Today my sister and I wanted to take the children to do a fun activity and as the sun was shining (sort of) we decided to take a trip to a local farm where you can pick strawberries amongst other fruit and vegetables.  We let the children have a punnet each and then we had a good root around in the plants to find the biggest, reddest strawberries we could find!

The punnets were £1.60 per lb although the babies picked about half a pound each before they got bored, but as they were hunting for the best fruits this still took a while!

We had a wander around the Farm Shop where you can also buy Yankee Candles and craft supplies before we went home, so the entire trip took just over an hour and we spent about 70p each!

We had a fun afternoon and came home with some strawberries for less than £1 so we will definitely be taking the children again!  This also promotes fruit as a treat instead of sweets and as you know I am all for the healthy eating so it especially floats my boat!  I am planning to do some research and find some recipes so we can pick the fruits or vegetables and then cook with them when we get home next time.

Have you taken your children to any fun & cheap or free activities recently?