Dying Rice

I haven't made it yet but my goal is to make a mosaic using colored rice. You can also use colorful beans, sand or pasta. I saw the idea on Martha Stewart's kids' crafting page but with beans. If it's a kids' craft, I'm pretty sure I can do it, too!

Thanks to google, I found out how to dye rice. Dying rice is a smelly but easy process. It's pretty simple to make and doesn't require much. You need a container with a lid, cookie sheet lined, strainer/sieve, vinegar, rice and food coloring.

Take 1/4 cup of vinegar and add food coloring. Then add 1/2 cup of rice. 

Now shake, shake, shake! Make sure the lid's on tight, too!

Shake until all the rice is evenly coated. Then let stand for 5 minutes.

Now, drain the rice over a sink. Have a cookie sheet lined with tin foil ready. After you've drained the rice, spread it out on a cookie sheet. Try to get one layer of rice.

Since I'm impatient, I put them in the oven on convection around 140 degrees. Check on these often! (I always forget there's a gust of hot air when you open the oven and stick my face right in the gust's way, so remember when you open the oven to stand back!) They only took about 10 minutes to dry out. You can also leave them out to dry or place in the sun to dry. No matter what, it isn't going to smell all that great unless you like the smell of vinegar :)

You can do all sorts of things with colored rice. Next week's post will be the mosaic...as soon as I figure out what to do!

**Any suggestions for what I should do for the mosaic? I'm stumped!**

Summer silhouette painting: rough draft (project in progress)

Happy Memorial day! We're grateful to all those who have helped to preserve our freedoms.

Don't forget: today is the last day to submit your version of Jaime's scrapbook sketch!

Some people in our family have natural talents with the visual arts. I'm not one of them.

I'm okay with that. But every once in a while (Who am I kidding? I'm Wayward! This happens all the time!) I get an idea for a craft in my head and I want to make it whether I really know how to use these media or not.

In this case, I've had a vision for my daughter's room basically since she was born. I haven't gathered the courage to do it yet, but after seeing this silhouette painting tutorial on Sisters of the Wild West, I'm inspired to make it happen.

What I want to make:
A framed silhouette painting. Since it's the unofficial beginning of summer, the painting is inspired by the carefree whimsy of summer and childhood. I want to paint it in the colors of my daughter's room: cream background with a rose pink silhouette.

I've been planning to make a computer graphic of the picture I had in mind and use a computer project to project it onto a canvas to paint.

Here's the rough version of my image, a collage of Creative Commons licensed Flickr images:

I'm still thinking about and tweaking the individual elements, of course. I've been consulting with Brooke, resident painting expert, on exactly how to make this happen. She advised me to use a pre-stretched canvas (which is a lot cheaper than I thought if you're using a standard size) and said that the latex paint we used on the walls would work fine as long as it dries between coats.

I'll keep you posted on my results!

What do you think? What would you put in a summer silhouette painting?

Photo credits from the collage: water—Lois Elling; sitting person and his other leg—Chris Palmer; 

tree—Laura Nolte; tire swinger—Amit Kotwal