Edible Summer Sand Art “Fun Dip Style”

I remember back in the late 80’s early 90’s sand art was all the rage.  You could buy kits to make it at home or you could go to craft fair or a local amusement park that had a station that you could make your our sand art.  Now that I have my own kids I like thinking back on things that I enjoyed doing as a child and re-creating craft days to share these similar experiences with my own children.  I looked at different sand art options and then thought to myself: “wouldn’t it be fun if you could eat it also?”  I decided the edible sand art would be the perfect choice.  I did a little searching on the web to see what was out there for edible sand art and to my surprise there wasn’t a lot of options.  I was lucky enough to find one here that has a great recipe to make your own edible sand art.

Let your kids help with the whole process, it really is that simple to make. You will need: sugar, drink flavor packets, cornstarch, food coloring and jars.  We decided to make 3 different flavors for them to layer. Dump 1 cup of sugar, half of a packet of drink flavoring, 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch and 10-15 drops of food coloring in a blender.  I pulsed the mixture a few times until it all became incorporated.  I poured my colored sugar mixture in a bowl and repeated the same process until all of our flavors were mixed.  It only took around 10 minutes to mix up all 3 flavors.   We made a mixed berry, black cherry and strawberry lemonade sugar mixtures. The kids were so excited while making it, then I started second guessing myself if this was a good idea as they were already worked up and I was about to feed them jars full of sugar!!!

Next step is to let them get creative and fill up their own jars.  I save all kinds of jars so I selected some smaller sized jars for them to fill. If you don’t have any jars on hand craft stores usually carry an assortment of different shaped jars. At this point I took the kids, jars and sugar mixtures outside to create these on my patio table.  I had visions of all that sugar getting spilled on my kitchen and floor and thought it would be less of a mess to clean up outside.  I placed spoons in the bowls and let the kids get to work filling the jars.  They had a great time layering the different colors and flavors. Here is where the “Fun Dip Style” comes in. I thought it needed some way for them to eat the sand out of the jars.  We attached a sucker onto the jars for dipping, just like you would with fun dip. We made extra jars for friends and cousins.

Right now I am at best mom in world status with my kids.  It’s funny how something so easy and simple as an edible sand art jar can change their world! The bonus is this craft tastes and smell wonderful too!