How to Dye Beans for Crafts and Sensory Bins

Learn how to dye beans using food coloring and dried beans for an easy DIY craft supply – great for kids’ crafts and sensory bins.

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Some of the best craft supplies are the ones you always have on hand. We love crafting with recyclable materials, using pantry staples, and turning simple craft supplies into something creative and new!

Right now, you probably have an old bag of dried beans in the back of your pantry. How long has it been sitting there? Are you really going to cook it?

If not, we’ve got a fun and easy way to dye beans! You only need a few other pantry items to do this craft project with your kids. Once you have a few jars of bright rainbow-colored beans, there are tons of fun things you can do with them too.

One of our favorite ideas is using dried beans – along with rice, pasta, or small plastic toys – to create a toddler-friendly sensory bin. And we recently used these colorful beans to make bean mosaic art!

Before we get started – it’s important that young children are supervised when crafting or playing with dried beans. Kids are naturally curious, but make sure your child doesn’t put them in their mouth (or nose!).

Dried bean craft tips

What are the best beans to dye for crafts?

Any dried beans will work with food coloring, but lighter beans will produce a stronger color. Lima beans, navy beans, great northern beans, and cannellini beans are the closest to white.

Chickpeas and lentils are also fine. Pinto beans dye alright, but their skin tends to wrinkle easily.

Can you dye beans with paint?

You can use acrylic craft paint instead of food coloring to dye beans. You may need more or less paint to achieve the same colors. The paint may also take longer to dry.

What else can you dye for sensory bins?

Sensory bins are a great activity for toddlers. You can dye and include a variety of household items that you probably already have at home. In addition to dried beans, uncooked rice and pasta are also a fun way to add different textures.

You can use the same technique for dying, just use more or less dye as necessary.

Are dried beans good for crafts?

If you have an old package of dried beans in the back of your pantry, you can still use it! Dried beans have a shelf life of about 2 years, so if yours are older, they probably won’t be great for eating.

Beans don’t expire, but after a few years, they tend to stay hard even after you cook them. But that makes them great for crafts!

How to dye beans

Supplies

• dried beans
• gel food coloring
• white vinegar
• small zip bags
• measuring cup
• measuring spoon
• baking sheets
• wax paper

Instructions

1. Prep baking sheets.

Set out 1 or 2 baking sheets (depending on how many batches of beans you’re dying) and line each one with wax paper. Alternatively, you can use parchment.

2. Combine beans with dye.

For each batch of beans, combine 1 cup of dry beans, 1 teaspoon of vinegar, and a generous squirt of food coloring in a zip bag. We’d estimate that each of ours used a quarter-teaspoon of gel food coloring.

Seal the bag securely and gently knead it to combine. Mix the beans until they’re completely covered and the dye is evenly distributed.

3. Spread beans out to dry.

As soon as the beans are coated, dump each bag out onto the lined baking sheet. Spread the beans out into a single layer and let them air dry completely. This will take around 3 to 5 hours, but for the best results let them dry overnight.

4. Play and craft with colored beans.

Now you can use these colored beans for crafts, a sensory bin, or however you like!

Printable instructions

More fun ideas from Backyard Summer Camp:

• 24 Easy Rainbow Crafts for Kids
• 30 Popsicle Stick Crafts to Make All Summer
• 36 Easy Crafts for Toddlers