Feature Friday- Fashionista Pasta Necklace

I love pasta.  But I’m on a diet, you see, so I really shouldn’t be eating a ton of it.  Which of course makes me think lovingly about it.  And it comes in so many shapes and sizes that a challenge came to mind.  Can I make something with it that totally does not look like pasta? So I eyeballed my box of Ditalini for a bit and came up with a plan.  A necklace made of pasta that even the most fashion forward might wear.  Pasta that doesn’t look like pasta.  An “anti-pasta”.  Get it?

For this project I used:
1 box of Ditalini pasta
Several boxes of easter egg dye*
*(If you don’t have easter egg dye, use liquid food coloring or paste food coloring) 
Vinegar
Acrylic Paint (silver)
Mod Podge (gloss)
skewers
string
large tapestry needle
I began by mixing up the egg dyes.  In order to get deep colors, I used several packs of color, adding one cup of water and 5 tablespoons vinegar.  If you are using liquid or paste food coloring, you can use this same formula.  Mixing colors? 
Red + Yellow = Orange
Blue + Red = Purple
Blue + Yellow = Green
Red + Blue + Yellow = Brown
I simply dropped a handful of pasta into the colorant, let it sit for a few moments and then removed it.  Of course the length of time you let it sit will determine the darkness of color, but you don’t want the pasta to do what pasta has a tendancy to do in water- become soft.  Because I mixed the colors so strong, it only took a few moments to get a good color.
I laid out the colored pasta on paper towels to dry.  This part of the project can get pretty messy.  Be careful with the colorant as it really can stain.  Also, at this point, the pasta is not edible.  I had to watch my dog carefully, because he has a thing for pasta.  Kinda like I do.

After your pasta totally dries (about an hour), you can now just hand it to the kids and let them put together necklaces to their hearts content.  Or, you can get all blingy and go to the next step!

I punched wooden skewers into an old piece of styrofoam to hold them and then put the pasta beads on them.  This is so that the next step is rather easy.

I then added bling by painting lines with silver acrylic paint.  For mine, I did three lines of silver down the sides of each skewered bead group.

It’s starting to look less and less like pasta!
I then added a good coat of Mod Podge in Gloss Lustre and allowed them to dry.

Remove the bead “sticks” from the skewers once they are dry and then snap the individual beads apart.

Pretty pasta!

Now use a tapestry needle and string to string your “beads”.  Once you have your work of art complete, knot the string and use the tapestry needle to run the loose ends back through the last few beads.

And there you have it!  Fashion forward jewelry that even my picky daughter would wear! 

Pretty cool, huh?  

If you enjoyed this tutorial, you might also like my Dough Bear Ornaments Tutorial.  Another kid friendly craft that takes food and turns it into something else entirely.  

Or if you want more ideas of what you can do with Easter egg dye, check out my Hand-dyeing Yarn Tutorial