Rainbow Jars {DIY}

After spending the last few weeks either being (a) over-the-top Sunshine Susie with rainbows and unicorns and glittery words about how blissful my Life is as I capture the moment or (b) way-way-Down Debbie Downer with dark gray puffy clouds full of acid rain and gloomy reminders compliments of your truly that Life also has a darker side, how about something FUN and PRACTICALLY MINDLESS that also makes you look, once again, like a fucking rock star?


Although I cannot be completely sure, I am convinced that the rest of the World has been experiencing frequent periods of excessive heat with very little relief, just as I have been. We typically determine the days like this: Is it raining, or not raining? And for about 3,234 days the answer has been no, it is not, and we have been spending our days almost entirely outdoors, because Life is Blissful. 
EXCEPT. (gasp) 
It rained this past weekend. I thought to myself oh good my veggies and grass and flowers will be happy and then: maybe I will actually be able to get some work done. ( canned laughter) 
The kids were ( double gasp ) bored. Do you believe this shit? Would it be so horrible to, oh, I don't know, re-thefuck-lax once in a while? Instead, my younger two came clamoring with some random shit from their craft cabinet that I should have thrown out years ago. It was a bucket containing some sort of sand art supplies...but  no.fucking.sand. (audience moan). 


Sometimes, when I am really desperate, when the risk of failure is less than the risk of success, I try an idea from Pinterest.  I had seen something a while ago about coloring salt using sidewalk chalk. Skeptical, I didn't even pin it.  I remember thinking to myself this sounds like a load of shit and a bigger mess than I could fathom. This is a project for good mothers who do not have OCD, or at the very least, do not have a Type A personality. 
EXCEPT, trying this seemed like my only option, the other one being another kid in another voice telling me they have nothing to do- did it stop raining- let's just check- mom did you check to see if the rain stopped yet? Nope. Nope I didn't check and nope it hasn't stopped but who cares because your rock star of a mother is here to save the day...and seriously? ( I know I say this every time) SO AMAZINGLY SIMPLE. To further your awesomeness level it is also a sensory activity, and it kept my kids occupied for about an hour and a half. STRAIGHT, PEOPLE. 


Best part? It looks like, well, a rainbow in a jar. And we could all use one of those. 

SUPPLIES: Salt. Sidewalk Chalk, Plastic/Paper Cups(one for each color), Paper Plates.Glass or Plastic Jar with lids. 

Pour salt onto a paper plate, and rub with chalk color of your choice. I used both "big" sidewalk chalk and smaller "chalkboard" chalk. The bigger chalk color came out very bold, while the smaller chalk was not only harder to work with, but the color is more of a pastel tone. I had the kids work within a shallow aluminum foil pan to contain the salt, which, at ages 4 and 8, was hardly a mess at all.

Believe me, you will be surprised how quickly and easily the salt takes on the color. I was such a skeptic, and thought it would be super messy, but I promise you, it is not! It was fun playing around to get different colors and saturation.  We collected our colors in clear plastic cups as we went. 

And, yes, that's it. When you have enough of all the colors you want to fill whatever jars you are using, go for it, just the same way you would with sand art. I just used a mix of whatever we had, hence the randomness of my Rainbow Jar Collection. 
Yup. They pretty much Rock. 

SO simple, SO fun, SO bright and cheerful. 

 It didn't even matter that it was still raining.

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