I’m sure you all know that you can dye pasta to use for crafts or sensory play, but did you also know you can paint pasta?
Get the kids involved in painting pasta for threading, for crafts, or as a sensory tub filler. It’s a simple and fun process art activity for kids of all ages!
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.
There are a few ways to colour pasta so that you can play or create with it, but most of them have the adult doing the colouring. This simple method of painting pasta gets the kids involved in coloring the pasta.
Painting pasta is a quick and easy way to add colour to pasta that you can then use for lots of different things!
How to Paint Pasta.
I wanted some coloured pasta for my toddler to thread, but I also had older kids who were bored, so to answer both problems we gave painting pasta a try!
Turns out, painting pasta is lots of fun, and this was one of those magical activities that everyone loved, no matter there age!
To paint your own pasta you’ll need:
- Pasta of any size and shape – we used tubes because we wanted it for threading.
- Water colour paints – we used fluro tempera discs similar to these.
- Paint brushes
- Water to wash your brush.
- Art smocks/ Aprons and something to cover your work surface.
Cover your work surface and make sure you have lots of space to put your painted pasta to dry, then simply give your kids a pile of pasta and a paint brush and let their creativity run wild!
Older kids will love using smaller brushes and painting designs and fine details in larger pasta, and younger kids will just love being able to add colours to a new and differnt surface.
My older kids painted stripes and fancy colour co-ordinated patterns, my six year old loved the way the paint swam down the ridges on the pasta and swirled the colours together, and my toddler just painted, and painted and painted.
You need to be a little light on with the paint so the pasta doesn’t get too soggy, but even soggy pasta will harden again if you allow it dry in a warm spot.
Once you are done painting you’ll need to spread the pasta out and leave it to dry in a warm spot overnight. If you are un a hurry you can put it on a tray in a love oven that you have turned off to speed up the drying process.
Once the pasta is dry it is time to use it!
Painted pasta can be used as a sensory tub filler, for crafts, of for threading!
Threading with Painted Pasta
We used our fluro painted pasta for a simple threading activity.
To thread with tubular pasta you’ll need some string. We like using weed wacker plastic cording as it’s cheep and really stiff which makes it easy for little hands to manage, or you can use plastic craft string, or just use regular strong with a plastic craft needle attached to one end.
Tie a piece of pasta to the end of the string so nothing falls off while the child is threading and you are ready to make a magical painted pasta threading!
Now just put on your super trendy fluro pasta necklace and you’re ready for anything!
This was so much fun and the results were so cool! I am in love with all the colour combinations and may have snapped 20 gazillion photos of all that glorious colour and then proudly wore my necklace to school pick up!
Surely I am not the only one who has worn a kid-made accessory in public right??
And if your kids love to thread things, check out this super list of easy threading ideas.
What a brilliant idea! Can’t wait to use this in my classroom! What crafty little kids you have!!!
This is such a great idea! We are totally doing this. Thanks for the inspiration!
Love, love, love the color of these! I am the same way with pics, I take about a gazillion and then have to narrow it down to just a few….such a difficult task. The color of the necklaces is so “photogenic”!
Absolutely love this idea Kate…was just thinking I didn’t have any pasta dyed and the girls really wanted to do some threading….never thought of letting them paint it!! Going to be giving it a go today with some new paints from Micador!
Ok, this has made me want to get the tempera paints out! The fluro ones! haha. I can’t believe they turned out so well on pasta! Nice one!
Such beautiful colors! I just posted about this on The Crafty Crow :)
Love the colors, questions…will the paint rub off on clothing? Think to spray a sealer on the pasta before threading?
And YES, I wear all sorts of child’s art in public!
We didn’t have any problem with colour coming off, but it probably would after a while so maybe a quick spray with hair spray would do the trick?
Essa ideia é otima! Já fiz com minha turminha na escola, mas primeiro tingi o macarrão com anilina comestivel, assim não corremos o risco das crianças colorarem na boca um produto toxico. Elas adoraram a atividade.
Ive done colored pasta before as a classroom teacher use a couple of teaspoons of rubbing alcohol and food coloring in a ziplock bag put in pasta and seal then shake just an easier method
Yes, colouring pasta with food colouring is a great way to get it done quickly, but for this activity the aim was to be creative and to enjoy the process of making fun and funkly coloured pasta to thread.
This is such a cool idea. Thank you for sharing.
What did you use to thread it? It doesn’t look like yarn.
We use plastic craft string to thread with as it’s a bit easier to use than floppy wool or string.
I have questions do cook the pasta first or not I am going to this activity with preschoolers . ?
No, the pasta is not cooked… just hard dry pasta as it comes out of the packet.