Rainbow Rice *

 While window-shopping a teacher catalog, Starboy spied some "rainbow rice" that he said he wanted for his rice box (indoor tabletop sandbox—highly recommend). I was sure we could make it easily. And not pay shipping.

I started out with our natural food coloring, and noticed that the colors were rich, but not vibrant, as you can see from this first batch of earth tones. Then, I ran out of yellow. So I added powdered turmeric to the yellow and orange, hoping to affect the color. Which it did—but the turmeric also instantly turned my hands yellow. Sensory overload.

And, since I used apple-scented hand gel to set the color, the whole thing smells horrible. Fake-apple-foreign-spice-factory bad. Sensory fail.

Somehow, since the last time I Googled, the techniques on rice-dying have improved. I wish I'd checked this out before I started. It turns out you can set the color (and shorten drying time) with either a tablespoon of plain rubbing alcohol, or white vinegar. So I bagged up the sad, sorry, smelly all-natural rice and started over. (I'm hoping our preschool can use it for something. I think the powdered turmeric precludes it from successful I-spy jars.)

 For take two, I used liquid water color paint and rubbing alcohol. A much greater success! Bright colors! No surprise smells! No tactile aversion strategies! And I also had yellow!

Starboy was champing at the bit to play. I'm not so excited that the colors look like Easter confetti, but whatever. I guess not everything can be brown and green. I like to keep his environment more simple, with solid colors, so he can concentrate, so this is bold new territory. Ha.

* Then shortly after I originally posted this, he informed me that his plastic hamster and plastic mouse did not like the new rice. That he asked for. That I stayed up late making last night.

Too many colors.

"They want plain blue, so they can be in water."

 

* He happily dug right in, initially, but it didn't engage him like the original rice box did.

It's Muriel Mouse's own little Disneyland. But I guess she gets overstimulated there, like everyone else!

Recipe for colored rice

as gleaned from many mommy sites on the Internet

1-2 cups rice (per color)

1 Tbsp rubbing alcohol / white vinegar

2 good squirts of liquid water color

Mix all ingredients together in a sealed zipper bag or a cheap plastic container that can be stained (you never know). Repeat as needed if  you want more than one color.

Spread wet, colored rice onto a tray that is covered with a paper towel, until dry (I like the $2 Smula tray from Ikea for art projects; we have a stack of them). This may happen quickly, but I let ours dry overnight. 

Camping! And tips!

We love camping, and especially at Yosemite. Techman has been camping and climbing there for most of his life—I was late to the party until I moved to California, and I couldn't believe I'd never experienced anything so beautiful before.

Starboy LOVES sleeping in the tent and playing outside.

 I'm not a light packer, but we sure do camp comfortably! I have the packing down to a science. You can check out my packlists here or at the link below. There's a gear packing list, a pack planner, meal planner, and my top Yosemite picks for newbies.

On the down side, if you follow the tips, your car might look like a little like this:

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Ours does, and it drives Techman nuts. Luckily I don't mind traveling on this trip with no leg room.

Preparing for bear country is a pain in the ass—anything with even a miniscule scent needs to be stored in the brown bear locker. But after so many years we have it down.

This little table was a great score at a Crate and Barrel sale a few years ago. No worries about Starboy slipping through the picnic table, and he has a place to play while we're preparing dinner.

Starboy has been going to Yosemite since he was an infant. Getting outdoors is grounding for all of us. 

Bug's Ultimate Car Camping Meal Planning Sheet by bugitybug

More Sparkle!

We're kicking it up a notch with the second part of our kid-friendly fireworks display! Check out Phase 1 from Friday!

 

And the beautiful display with both projects together!

We started with some dowels or lollipop sticks, silver duct tape, and several types of mylar for fringe. All from the craft store. It turned out that the shredded mylar was the fastest and easiest to work with.

First, we anchored the tape to the stick.

Then we just added the strips as fringe, and rolled it up. We needed a few layers.

Et voila!

 I was disappointed to realize that our blue mylar was clear. And slippery. With lots of static cling. And, the wrong color. And wrong quality of light reflection. Starboy loved it. I cut fringe, rather than individual pieces, to avoid a mess, and chaos.

This was too complicated for Starboy to do. So already: Fail.

 Sheesh, was the mylar a hassle to work with. Very flimsy and static-y, and hard to tape. And it kept tearing. And, way too hard for Starboy to do. FAIL.

 The result? A pom-pon. Rah! Rah! Rah!! U! S! A! 

Gross.

Starboy loves it. I think it's hideous and cheap-o. But I suppose we could take it to the parade.

 Luckily, it makes a great car wash wand.  Moving along...

 The mylar fireworks with Friday's pipe cleaner ones look great together. Rice is anchoring the lot of them, and you can see in the photo at the top of the post that a ribbon might pull it all together.

We also tried some using just a mason jar and the rice. Another approach!

July 4th Sparkle!

Starboy was super-enthused to make these "sticks with pokes on them made from pipe cleaners."

It's very easy to make your own kid-friendly fireworks display. Many, many thanks to Miss Molly for giving us the idea! 

The materials are simple: Pipecleaners, sticks or dowels, and duct tape. We got special, shiny tape, and two lengths of sticks. We also used some old canning jars and rice to turn them into a table decoration.

A decent burst requires four pipecleaners, though five is a little better. You can cut them into thirds, or just cut off one third and bend the remaining long piece in half.

 Kid scissors will be useless. Starboy loved using adult scissors. This gave us a chance to talk about "leverage." Math lesson!

Then, really secure the duct tape to the stick. If you have ripped the tape instead of cut it, feel free to attach that ragged end here, to bury it. And leave the ragged side at the bottom so it gets wrapped in to the project with the straight edge on top. We used strips that were about 1/2" wide by 5" long.

 Then, start adding pipe cleaners, and rolling.

 As you roll, add a few more stems.

 

Starboy was very interested in the sticky tape, and rolling it by himself. You'll notice his isn't too tight. You can pinch it down, and wrap another piece of tape around the outside to snug it down.

Then, arrange the "pokes" to make some rockets' blue glare.

Sparkly joy!

Here's a close-up of a cinched-down firework.

Oooh, what are those other fireworks?! Stay tuned!

Can you think of anyone more perfect to enjoy some holiday sparkle? We couldn't! Hope they arrive in time for celebrations! And check out SparkleStories.com for a free summer story!