How to Make Homemade Edible Glitter (Just 3 Ingredients!)

If you’ve got kids, you probably have a complicated relationship with glitter. It ends up everywhere, it never fully vacuums up, and most craft store glitter is made from plastic. Not ideal when little hands are all over it – and let’s be honest, sometimes in little mouths too.

This homemade edible glitter solves all of that. Made from simple ingredients you can pick up at the supermarket, it’s completely taste-safe, plastic-free, and biodegradable. No microplastics. No mess that haunts you for years.

What You’ll Need

1 pack of rice paper sheets (the kind used for spring rolls – Valcom 22cm rounds from the Asian food aisle work perfectly)
Food colouring in your chosen colours
Water
A bowl or baking tin
Baking paper
Scissors
A blender
Small glass jars or shakers for storage

Instructions

Step 1: Dye your rice paper
Fill a bowl or tin about halfway with water, then add a few drops of food colouring. You can go light and pastel or deep and vivid – the more colouring you add, the brighter your glitter will be.

Place one sheet of rice paper in at a time and leave it for a few minutes to soak up the colour fully.

Step 2: Dry the sheets
Once you’ve dyed all your colours, lay each sheet flat on baking paper and put them out in the sun. Leave them until they are completely dry and hard – this is important. Any moisture left in the sheets means they won’t blend into a fine glitter texture. Depending on your weather, this can take a few hours.

Step 3: Blend into glitter
Once the sheets are crisp and brittle, use scissors to chop them into small pieces. Pop them into a blender and blitz until you have a fine dust. Remove any clumps if needed and give it one more quick blend.

Rice paper sheets drying in the sun, dried rice paper being cut with scissors, and homemade edible glitter being blended in a blender

Step 4: Store your edible glitter
Tip your finished homemade edible glitter into small glass jars or shakers. Repeat with each colour and you’ve got a whole set ready to go.

Homemade edible glitter in four glass shakers - yellow, red, green and blue - made from rice paper, water and food colouring

Ideas for Using your Homemade Edible Glitter with Kids

Because this glitter is made entirely from rice paper and food colouring, it’s completely taste-safe – perfect for toddlers and preschoolers who still explore everything with their mouths.

Add to playdough or slime for a sparkly sensory experience
Use in sensory bins and water play
Sprinkle over arts and crafts projects
Add to potion play and sensory bottles

Why Homemade Edible Glitter Beats Regular Craft Glitter

Standard craft glitter is made from tiny pieces of plastic. Those microplastics end up in waterways, in the soil, and yes – in little tummies. Homemade edible glitter made from rice paper sidesteps all of that. Rice paper is biodegradable, food colouring is food-safe, and the result looks just as sparkly as anything you’d buy.

Tips for the Best Results

Use kitchen tongs when handling the rice paper in the dye to avoid stained hands.
Lay your sheets out on a dry, sunny day for the fastest drying time.
Make multiple colours in one session and store them in jars – they keep well in a dry spot.
For a chunkier, more textured glitter, skip the blender and crumble the dried sheets by hand instead.

Want more sensory play and kids’ activity ideas? Browse our blog – and if messy play is a regular thing in your house, our coveralls and craft aprons are made to keep clothes clean while kids get into everything.

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