Color the Sand
The first thing I did was to make most of the sand into colored sand. First I divided it it into 5 baggies with about one ounce of sand per baggie. To make the colors, I simply used food coloring. To about 1 ounce of sand, I added 2 to 4 drops of food coloring. For the orange, I used 6 drops -- 3 drops of yellow and 3 drops of red. Found out you wouldn't want to add much more than 6 drops. The sand absorbs the moisture, but begins to get moist if you add too much.
The colors I used were McCormick food colors
Green neon
Blue neon
Purple neon
Pink Neon
Yellow and red (to make orange); just the regular colors, not neon.
Here are my baggies of colored sand.
Sand and Shells Candle Holder
In my craft supplies was a pretty little glass candle holder. It was lonely and had no match, so it was just waiting for something to make it cheery and fun.
This project was simple. First I made sure the candle holder was clean. Then I chose the colors of sand (actually Mom chose them). First was blue, then green, then blue, then green again. They were poured in unevenly so as to make patterns within the glass candle holder. When it got as full as I wanted it, I added a little round candle and some tiny sea shells. Here is a peek from some different angles.
Cotton Candy Colors Vase
You will probably recognize this vase from last week's post. It is the one I used for the experiment stringing seed beads onto copper wire. It looked OK but really needed a lot more beads in the larger part of the vase. Mom had the idea of filling the vase with the colored sand. That sounded great, so I gave it a try!
Now, filling this vase with colored sand was easier said than done. Surprisingly, it was about as hard to get the sand in the curvy bottom of part of the vase as it was to get the beads and wire in it. With some patience, turning the vase this way and that, and some gentle tapping, the sand got down there. However, that part of the vase never did get full.
Sand was added to the vase in alternating colors -- yellow, orange, blue, pink, and purple. This sequence was repeated four times until the vase was full. The vase holds a surprising amount of sand -- about 8 ounces. When it was all filled with sand, we took a piece of yellow sticky tack and put it in the top of the vase. That way, if I accidentally tip the vase over, sand won't go everywhere. :-)
So that was my fun with colored sand! What would you make with colored sand?