Home » Crafts » Colored Salt

Colored Salt

Did you know you can color salt? Sand can be expensive to buy so we used salt to make these colorful salt jars that look like sand jars! It’s easy to make and the results are amazing!

RELATED: How to Make Rainbow Rice

Colored Salt Jars

Make these beautiful sand look-alike jars using colored salt! You only need recycled jars, salt and some food coloring! Kids will love doing this activity too!

Rainbow Colored Salt

And if you love recycled crafts, our bookFun and Easy Crafting with Recycled Materials is bursting with recycled crafts like this one. There are other recycled jar crafts, but also cardboard, egg cartons, paper rolls, newspaper, popsicle sticks, and more!

Fun and Easy Crafting Book

 

Supplies to Make Colored Salt Jars

Table Salt

Food Coloring – we like to use this liquid food coloring gel since it’s concentrated and makes the colors really vibrant

Recycled Jars

Gold Spray Paint (optional if you want to spray the jar lids)

Resealable bags

Add Salt into Jars

 

Watch the Video Tutorial Here!

 

How to Color Salt for Crafts

1. Start by cleaning out your recycled jars and remove any labels. You can soak the labels in soap water and they should come off. If you are left with any sticky residue you can use some Goo Gone (adults only).

We also spray painted our jar lids gold as they were black and we wanted the lid colors to be different. You can spray paint them any color you’d like!

2. Pour 1 cup of salt into a resealable bag.

Add Salt to Bag

3.  Add a little bit of food coloring to start. We started with a few drops of the concentrated food coloring. Seal and shake the bag to distribute the color.

Don’t add too much coloring or it will make the salt too wet and clumpy. If you need a little more coloring just add a little bit more at a time to avoid it getting too wet.

Also note – if the salt is too wet, the colors may bleed in the jars. So the less amount of coloring you can use the better. It’s always better to start with just a little and add more if needed.

Add Food Coloring to Salt

If any clumps do come up, scoop these out or keep mixing to combine it.

Keep shaking the bags until all of your salt is colored.

How to Dye Salt

4. Add each color into a small bowl for scooping out.

Colored Salt in Bowls

5. Now you are ready to start creating your jars! Using a funnel and small spoons or measuring spoons, have kids add different colors into the jars. You can layer any color combinations you’d like or make a rainbow version!

Fill Jars with Colored Salt

6. Keep filling the jars to the top. Some of the salt may settle down so it’s best to fill the jar to the top in case this happens. If you still have some settle, add some more salt into the jar after a day.

Layer Salt into Jar

7. Now your jars are finished!  These would make great gifts for birthdays, Mother’s day or even as teacher gifts.

How to Color Salt for Crafts

More Crafts and Activities

See how to make your own rainbow rice. This looks great in a jar too!

Rainbow Rice Recipe

For some fun sand sensory play, see how to make this sand slime!

Kinetic Sand Slime

 

Review icon

Share a Comment!

We LOVE hearing from you! Submit your question or comment here.

Your email address will not be published.
Required fields are marked *

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top