Macaroni Necklaces (B)

The macaroni necklace- a childhood cliché if one ever did exist. I know why now- they are fun to make and freaking adorable! I did this last summer with HJ and again over the winter; it was a hit both times.

I used Rigatoni because of the wide opening. They also come in regular and short lengths; so it makes for a more exciting string of "beads" than if they were all uniform. You can color the pasta using alcohol, but I went with white wine vinegar. The big difference is using vinegar means they're safe for digestion; so if my sister's little Pickle joins us there's no worries. I was especially glad about my choice after the dog ate an entire necklace... 

I've read that dying the pasta in jars or Tupperware works well , but I did it in Ziploc freezer bags and everything went great. I put in just enough vinegar to cover the pasta and then added quite a few drops of liquid coloring. I have gels that I use when coloring icing (and they might have worked better), but they are not cheap, and I feel good old fashioned liquid worked fine. I smooshed the bags around to evenly distribute the coloring and then left them to stew.

You can see the noodles soaking up the color right away. I let mine sit for two hours, but that might have been too long- they started disintegrating! I used my regular pasta strainer to separate the pastas out from the liquid, then dumped it onto a baking sheet lined with paper towels. Once dry, sort and enjoy. The smelly vinegar fragrance stays with them for awhile, but it didn't transfer to us. Or was my nose too numb to notice at that point??



We strung them, while Optimus Prime supervised, onto some inexpensive yarn that I had from when I decided to learn how to crotchet (work in progress, don't ask). HJ was completely engaged and did not notice at all that this is a fine motor skill developing activity! You can see in the picture on the left above that I tied a knot around one of the small pieces at the end; this acted as an anchor to keep the pieces from sliding off the far end once strung (trial and error taught me this lesson...).

Once a necklace was done, I looped the remaining yarn through the anchor piece and tied it off.  I think I'll love that necklace forever. The first time we did this, we sent one of the extra necklaces with HJ to give to his mom, and he put the rest in his treasure chest (that's how the crazy dog got ahold of one!). The second time we saved the necklaces so he can give them to his grandmothers and his GG on Mother's Day.