Friday, June 8, 2012

Guest Post: Shannon G.

A wicked big thanks to my guest bloggers this week: Andrea, Shannon S., Mel, and now it's time for the fabulous, future mother in-law to my Peanut: Shannon G.

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Hey there Peanut followers!

My name is Shannon, and I am the genius behind Baby Shmizz.  I am a full-time mommy to my son Jack, (oh yeah, and I have another job too, I'm a Physician Assistant working in Emergency Medicine) and MILF to my pastry chef husband Mike.  We live in our overpriced little home sweet shack just north of Boston with our quirky rescue dog, Tessie.  We're a little bit crazy and a whole lotta fun, but fair warning, we don't have a filter!

I'm sure you've all seen this floating around Pinterest, Rainbow Rice to put in a sensory bin for toddlers to play with.  I've been wanting to make this for a while, and Monday was the perfect day since the weather here was 85 degrees and sunny (yup, its still April).

I used this recipe as my guideline :)

I tried to break down the cost by cup of rice, but it wasn't really working, so here is what I paid for everything today (I have leftovers).

1 10 lb bag of white rice: $5.49 (I only used about 1/3 of the bag, I made 12 cups of rice total)
bottle of rubbing alcohol: $1.09
Ziploc bags (sandwich size): $1.00 for 15 (Dollar Store!)
Food coloring: $2.50 for 4 bottles
Plastic container for storage: $1.00 (Dollar Store!)

So that's less than $12 for a fun activity that I could probably make about 8-10 batches from that one bag of rice.  Not bad at all!

Step 1: Gather your supplies:
Ingredients listed above,
Wax paper for drying
Disposable gloves (if you hate dye on your hands like I do)

Step 2:
Bag up your rice: 1 cup to a bag

Step 3: Add color
1 T rubbing alcohol + 10-12 drops food coloring
First batch I mixed them in these little bowls, 2nd batch I added
the alcohol and food coloring directly into the bag (much easier)

Step 4: 
Squish Squish Squish the bag till all the rice is colored.
Make double sure that your bag is sealed.
Trust me on that one...

Step 5: Dry
Spread out on wax paper in the sun and let dry
I think it took about 30 minutes to dry

Step 6: 
PLAY! Dump into a bin, sand/water table, cookie sheet, large bowl,
basically any large container.  Add a few utensils, cups or spoons, 
and let your toddler go to town!

Jack loved it :)  He played with it for about an hour :)
I was worried about the dye coming off on his hands, and I'm
happy to report that there was not one speck of dye on his hands :)






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