Make Your Own COLORED Kinetic Sand (10 lbs for 50 cents!)
Since our very popular make your own Kinetic Sand at home post, we’ve had a ton of great suggestions from people! From that, we’ve updated the Kinetic Sand recipe with clearer instructions and added video to show you exactly how to make it! We’ve never made moon sand, crazy sand or anything like that, but have heard great tips in the comments of our original post (so, thanks to all who shared!) 🙂 For example, did you know the middle recipe in the picture below will STINK after a few days? Yuck! We shared that picture from another source, so we’ll take our reader’s word for our and steer clear of that one. lol
When we found a way to make your own Kinetic Sand at home easy and cheap, we were excited. But, we had no idea how excited readers would be! Then again, it makes sense. Who wouldn’t want to make 10 pounds for 50 cents versus buying 2.2 pounds for about $18?
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So, head on over and grab our Kinetic Sand recipe which includes the price breakdown and instructions to make your own Kinetic sand for almost nothing. Adding color to your mix might increase the cost slightly, but not substantially.
After you make your own Kinetic Sand at home, come back to this post to see how to make COLORED Kinetic Sand to make it even more fun!
Make Your Own COLORED Kinetic Sand
First, head on over to our Kinetic Sand recipe, and then come back here to make COLORED Kinetic Sand to make it even more fun!
Before we begin, a few things to note:
- Coloring homemade kinetic sand isn’t quite like coloring play sand or art sand; kinetic sand can’t dry out completely like play sand does, it’s meant to be moist. Therefore the color will stay moist and not permanently adhere to the sand.
- Moist kinetic sand with color added as shown below will probably stain your child’s hands temporarily.
I tried food coloring and it stained my hands. The stain did come out when I shampooed my hair. - They sell white sand at craft stores which will take color better and make the color more true than regular tan colored sand. But, it costs more than play sand. Whether you use white or tan sand, your skin will probably be stained temporarily.
- They sell already colored sand (which is already a color when you buy the sand). Colored sand might work better in your kinetic sand recipe, if you want the colorful kinetic sand. Adding any color to sand will potentially stain your child’s hands. Personally, we’re happy with tan sand! 🙂
How to Color Sand
Food coloring – if you’re going to color kinetic sand with food coloring, there are a few things to consider. First, you can add liquid food coloring to water before mixing it into your Kinetic Sand recipe. Or, add liquid food coloring to more water and add to the already wet sand, allowing it to drain through (you can use an old rag in a colander to strain it). This method will make the sand very wet, so it’ll need to be spread out to dry. You can use paper towels and a cookie sheet to dry, just make sure to use something that won’t get stained from the color. And, remember, the kinetic sand (unlike play sand) can’t dry out completely. It’s meant to stay moist.
Results: I added blue food coloring to 2 cups of tan kinetic sand, 5 drops at a time – stopping to stir each time. I ended up using 25 drops of food coloring to get a nice, rich color. I recommend adding a little at a time so you can see how much you need. Although I used blue, my tan kinetic sand turned green not blue! I didn’t try adding other colors to get blue but I’m sure you could play around to get the color you want. Because the kinetic sand is moist, it’s likely that the food coloring will stain your hands. Mine did – a lot! I squished the food-coloring colored sand through my fingers for about 20 seconds and it stained my hands blue. lol! I washed my hands but it was still there (more faint, but not gone). When I washed my hair in the shower shortly after that, the food coloring stain was gone from my hands. Shampoo seems to remove food coloring stains from skin. 😀
Tempera paint powder – this works well to color sand, but again because the kinetic sand is moist it will be like putting little hands in paint. The difference is tempera paint washes off better than food coloring stain. Start with a cup or two of sand and 1 teaspoon of dry paint and mix well. Add more paint, 1 teaspoon at a time, mixing each time until color is achieved.
Colored chalk – one suggestion we saw was to use sidewalk chalk to color sand. You can grind the chalk into powder (I imagine you could put in a blender?) or use a cheese grater – however you do it, you need to make it into powder. Then mix it in with a little of the kinetic sand. This method is a lot like dry tempura paint. But, it probably doesn’t have as much pigment and wouldn’t be as colorful as tempera paint powder.
Alcohol-based ink – this is the stuff you get to fill your rubber stamp ink pad. You can buy bottles of alcohol-based ink at office supply stores, Walmart, etc. Add 1-2 drops at a time and mix well. Keep in mind that this may stain skin more permanently because the kinetic sand stays moist. The alcohol in the ink dries quickly and the pigment left over stains the sand (which is a good thing). But, I believe coloring sand with ink would work better with dry sand such as art sand for making designs in a glass jar. The alcohol in the ink may dry out the kinetic sand as well.
I wrote this article mostly because of the GREAT suggestions in comments of my wildly popular Kinetic Sand recipe post. You can successfully color sand using the methods above. But, as I said: kinetic sand stays moist – unlike regular play sand or sand that you use in art projects (such as filling vases and jars with different brightly colored sand). Coloring sand for those uses will be less likely to stain your skin. Coloring sand that will be used in a Kinetic Sand recipe will probably stain your skin. The stain isn’t permanent, but it’s something I want you to be aware of! 🙂
Here’s the Video Instruction showing how we made it!
Don’t miss our Homemade Kinetic Sand Recipe!
Other Recipe Ideas from around the Internets
We found this quick and easy guide (pictured below), but have heard some warnings. Especially Moon Sand 2.0 which apparently stinks terribly after a few hours!! Let us know in comments if you’ve had good luck or bad results with a specific recipe.