Vibrant Rainbow Sensory Beads

🌈 Scented Sensory Play with Rainbow Beads 🌈⁠ ⁠ Creating Rainbow Beans: ⁠ ⁠ White Northern Beans – we used 6 lbs of beans! ⁠ Neon Food Dye. The brighter the better!⁠ Rubbing Alcohol⁠ Essential Oils for scents⁠ Gallon Ziplock Baggies⁠ ⁠ MAKING THE RAINBOW⁠ Split the beans into baggies. We put about 2 cups of beans into each baggie to make each color. Add drops of food dye. We used about 15 drops of each color to get the vibrant colors. After you add the drops, add 1/4 (roughly) cup of rubbing alcohol to the baggie. This will help spread the color through the beans – helps the beans absorb the dye and as it evaporates quickly your beans should be ready for play in just a couple hours! Mix the bags by “smushing” the baggies to distribute the color evenly.⁠ ⁠ SCENTS FOR SENSORY PLAY⁠ Next you get to add scents! We suggest using only 2-3 essential oils, and encourage kids NOT to put the beans in their mouths. ⁠ ⁠ After you add your oils, let the beans sit out for a couple of hours on cookie sheets – while the color cures. This is an important step as you need the alcohol to completely evaporate. We did not notice any bleeding of the colors on our kids hands as the alcohol helped the dye absorb into the beans. If you leave that ingredient out the dye tends to rub off – it’s not excessive, not enough to stain clothes, you’ll just need to have your kids wash their hands when they are done.