How to dye pasta using a few simple ingredients. Dyed pasta is perfect to use for jewelry, collage, and sensory play.
Updated July 2025
Have you ever tried dyeing pasta for crafts?
You can use it to make colorful necklaces, mosaics, or collages, or just toss it into a bin with scoops and bowls for hours of sensory fun, much like you would with rainbow rice.
Just a warning: this is a tad addictive. Once you’ve done it, you’re going to want to head back to the grocery store for more pasta shapes and will end up making enough dyed pasta for a neighborhood of kids to string necklaces.
It’s so fun and so easy. Plus, kids love helping with the dyeing process, so it becomes a creative activity from start to finish.
How to Dye Pasta for Crafts
MATERIALS
- Pasta of various shapes and sizes
- Food coloring or liquid watercolors (we’ve even done this with Biocolors!)
- Gallon ziplock bags
- Rubbing alcohol (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Divide the pasta
Divide and pour the pasta into freezer bags. Use one bag for each color, but you can mix and match the pasta shapes.
- Add the color
Then add your food coloring to the bag. Close the top and scrunch it around in your hands to distribute the color.
If you find that the paint doesn’t spread as much as you want, a tiny amount of rubbing alcohol will distribute the food coloring quickly and easily throughout the pasta and will then evaporate, leaving the pasta to simply soak in the dye without any extra liquid.
- Let dry
Spread the dyed pasta out on a cookie sheet (we lined ours with parchment paper first) and let dry overnight.
- Repeat!
Make as many colors as you like!
Once your dyed pasta is dry, the crafting opportunities are endless! You can string them as beads, glue them in collages, or decorate playdough creations with them. You can also pour the pasta into a bin, add some scoops and cups and let your kids use it as a sensory bin material.
And this pasta dyeing technique works great to dye rice and dried beans, as well!
More Sensory Crafts for Kids
- Pasta Art Activities for Kids
- How to Make Rainbow Rice
- How to Dye Chickpeas for Sensory Play
- The Ultimate Guide to Sensory Bin Materials
- Homemade Art Materials for Kids
- How to Make Colored Salt for Sensory Play
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