how to: color your own chenille sticks

color your own chenille stick pipe cleaner

I’m not sure this is really a “how-to” or more of a crafty public service announcement. We recently had a purple pipe cleaner emergency in our house. (Does anyone else have trouble calling them chenille sticks?)

The project was a rainbow with a pot of gold. We had every color of the rainbow except purple. I suggested we go ahead and make the project and fill in the missing color later. Our Artist in Residence balked at that idea. How can you make a rainbow without purple? Details, Mama, details!

So, in an act of desperation, I grabbed a white pipe cleaner and a permanent purple marker. A Sharpie probably would have been best, but all I had was a dry erase marker. It worked remarkably well: I just colored it, waited about a minute and wiped it down with a tissue to make sure it was dry. Crisis averted!