DIY Fruit Juice Dyed Watermelon Windsock

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This #KoolOff shop featuring a DIY Fruit Juice Dyed Watermelon Windsock tutorial has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for #CollectiveBias and its advertiser.

We are in the midst of a heat wave and the only thing we can think about these days is summer. But since we’re still in spring we’re doing a bit of summer prep. While working on our garden the kids decided they wanted to plant watermelon this year so I headed to the store to pick up some watermelon seeds.

While we were shopping at Walmart I ended up in the fruit juice aisle – trying to kill two birds with one stone and getting everything off my list. I noticed the larger ready-to-drink Kool-Aid bottles and grabbed some Tropical Punch to help me cool off while I was gardening.

Once I had all of my groceries I found myself in the craft aisle (totally normal for me) while the husband and kids wandered around the toy aisle to “just look” around.

Now the kids have been bugging me to make some windsocks for them like the ones they made at their school. So I decided to grab some materials and give it a try on my own. They used coffee filters for their tie dye windsocks but since I couldn’t find ones that’d work for what I wanted I went with large poster board for the base of mine.

Once I got all of my supplies I started to think of creative designs and knew that a fruit juice dyed watermelon windsock would fit perfectly with the watermelon seeds I was planting in the garden. You could really recreate any fruit or veggie you’re growing in the garden to tie it in with the windsock. Just get creative with the Kool-Aid colors you choose!

DIY Fruit Juice Dyed Watermelon Windsock

What you need: 

• 96oz Ready-To-Drink Kool-Aid bottle in Tropical Punch
• Kool-Aid unsweetened drink mix in Cherry (choose colors that will enhance the ready-to-drink color)
• large poster board
• large tub or bin
• black construction paper
• green crepe paper
• tape or glue dots
• scissors
• twine or yarn
• hole punch

What you do: 

1. Cut poster board in half. Add ready-to-drink Kool-Aid into your large bin. Mix in Kool-Aid Cherry unsweetened drink mix packet into the ready-to-drink Kool-Aid and stir until dissolved. Add poster board (only one at a time) into Kool-Aid and let sit to allow the color to soak in.

2. Hang up dyed poster board to dry completely. While poster board is drying, cut out seed shapes out of the black construction paper.

3. Once dried, add seeds to the poster board to make the seeds of the watermelon. Roll poster board into a cylinder and use tape or glue dots to close together.

4. Add 4 holes evenly spaced on the top of the cylinder. Using two pieces of same length string or twine, tie one string to one hole and then the opposite hole. Then take the other string and cross it over. Tie it to the other two holes. This will give your windsock some structure so it won’t flop onto one side.

5. Cut out even lengths of green crepe paper, around 24 inches long. You’ll need 5-7 depending on the diameter of your windsock.

6. Attach crepe paper to the bottom of the windsock with tape or glue dots.

7. Hang up finished windsock in the yard and let the wind do it’s trick!

 How are you getting ready for Summer?