I make things, but I never thought that I am a very creative type of person, as 9 out of 10 times, I just copy other people’s ideas and make them happen through my hands.

However, maybe it’s because that recently I have too many ideas tossing up in my head, I came up with the one that I could finally claim it as “ORIGINAL”:-).

I thought it could be something that interests others if I share it here. Just as much as I have been enjoying other people’s inspiring creations, I hope you will like mine.

It’s very easy to do, but looks very unique and pretty (well, at least I think so). I bet you won’t find the same piece in any of the home decor shops that you visit. Plus, it probably won’t cost you any extra money to get all the materials to start.

I found all my stuff in my kitchen cupboard. Even if you don’t have all of them, you can easily access them in your local supermarket, and seriously they are not expensive at all.

The basic materials included:
1. Uncooked white rice: long grain, medium or short grain, jasmine rice, any type of white rice will do.

2. A small glass jar (preferably baby food jar, I used Heinz 6 months up to all age yellow lid ones) with an opening big enough to hold a tea light.

3. Liquid food colouring (you can find it in the cake mixtures aisle in your local supermarket).

You might also need some other tools to prepare things, like a bowl (to mix coloring), baking paper to dry rice, gloves to protect your skin when get touched with dyed wet rice, an oven to speed up drying process, if you are inpatient like me These are not essential, just be creative to use whatever you have to finish the project.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Prepare the glass jar: Clean it thoroughly. Empty it, wash it, scrub off any labels and sticky residues on the glass.

2.Prepare the rice: Fill up the glass jar with uncooked dried rice to the level that there is space left just enough to hold a tea light candle. You can measure it by putting the tea light on the top of the rice to see if the rim of the jar and the rim of the tea light are at the same level. This is the amount of the rice that you would need for this project. But be aware that the final volume of the rice after coloring and drying will be slightly bigger than its size before.

3. Only leave half of the rice in the jar, pour  the other half out in a bowl or onto a piece of paper.

4.Rinse the left rice in the jar with tap water a few times, pour out any excessive water. Your rice should be clean and wet now. This step is not necessary but as a Chinese, we always wash our rice before we cook it, so this is just out of habit.

5. In your mixing bowl, I used a small ceramic bowl, put in two teaspoons of clean water, and then add in food coloring drops until it achieves the color that you want. It’s the most fun part of this project.

6. Pour the coloring mixture into the jar. Replace the jar lid, shake the jar to get coloring evenly distributed on all the rice.

7. Set it for about 5-10 minutes. Drain the liquid in the jar (you might want to use a fine cloth or sieve, it’s a good idea to put on your protective gloves now).

8. Spread drained rice over the baking paper sheet with a single layer in a baking pan.

9. Repeat step 3-8 with another half rice, but this time trying a different colour.

10. Cover the rice with a piece of folio, bake for 30 minutes at about 180 degrees or until the water has gone and rice is dry.

11. While you are baking, clean your jar and dry it with a piece of kitchen paper towel. Now it’s ready to go.

12. Take the dried rice out of the oven. You might want to gently rub the rice with your fingers to separate any clusters you find. Do this gently so you won’t crush the rice into powder.

13. Fill in your jar with rice as you like. You can do two colours with two layers or alternate two colours into four layers. I made three jars. They are orange&red, yellow&green, blue&lime green.

14. Set your tea light on the top of the rice, light it up, you are done!

If you close the lid, it should be safe to carry the whole jar without worrying the rice coming out or two colours getting mixed, as long as you have tea light sitting tightly to secure any space between the lid and the rice. However, I would not shake it violently though:-)

Enjoy!