How to color rice

I tried a couple ways of doing this. I think this is how to do it the easiest (and it smells ok. If you use vinegar it smells like vinegar.)

Things you will need:

1 plastic container with lid (I used an old spaghetti sauce container)

1/2 cup water

A few drops of food coloring

1 cup rice

First I had my husband punch some holes in the lid of my container.

Put water in the container. Then add food coloring. Swish it around till it's mixed nicely. The color should be fairly dark at this point. It will end up looking a lot lighter on the rice than it does now.

Add rice. Shake/swish until the rice is all covered in color. Let it stand about 5 minutes.

Drain out extra water. This is where the holes in the lid come in handy. Screw on the lid and you can drain the water out without having to have a sieve or any thing else. Make sure to shake out as much extra water as you can.

Dump out onto napkins on a cookie sheet (or paper towels or newspaper - just something to collect the extra water)

Spread rice out over napkins. Cook in the oven on a low heat (warm or 200) for 10 minutes. Take the napkins out. Spread the rice out over the pan. Cook another 10 minutes. If your rice is dry at that point in time you're done. If you let it soak a while it might need to cook another 10 minutes. I think if it's warm outside when you do this you could just leave it out to dry. But here in Idaho in March - it's not really warm enough for that.

Note: The rice gets kind of sweaty in the oven. So if you're not sure if it's dry or not, take it out of the oven for 5 minutes and see if it still feels wet.

Crocheting fun

Some of my recent projects:

Blankets for a friends precious twins

I used the same pattern for these blankets that I used for Emmett's Christmas blanket. Basically they are tiny granny squares and then I used a single crochet to put them together.

I also used a variation of that pattern to make a blanket for Sam for Christmas.

He tries to wrap the little baby blankets I make around himself. So I made him his own that won't have to stretch to wrap around him.

This is just a bigger granny square - three rows then a row of single crochet for each square - then a single crochet to put them together.

And this is the newest one I made. I used a wooleater or Bavarian stitch

I'm so happy with how it turned out. I think the back looks pretty neat too:

I've been finding lots of fun patterns on pinterest so I'm trying them all out. Crocheting is such a great hobby to have with little people in the house. It's easy to put down and doesn't involve lots of pieces.