DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Coffee Filter Butterfly Craft

Coffee filter coloring is a lot of fun to do.  I find it relaxing to sit and watch the colors flow together to make unique patterns.

You can pick any colors you want to make your butterfly.  It's always fun to explore different color combinations and patterns.

Materials:

• coffee filter
• washable markers (we used crayola brand)
• squirt bottle or small glass of water.
• Pipecleaner

Note:  You can complete this project using food colouring instead of washable markers.  However!  I find this option to be very messy so would not do it with young children (if they get food colouring on their clothing you won't be able to get it out).  I would only use this option with children over age 10 and even then would want a good amount of supervision and old clothes to be worn.

Instructions:

• Flatten out a coffee filter on a plate.
• Scribble the filter with washable markers.   (I try to just let the kids do what they like...  Younger children will be a bit more random and that's ok).
• Use a squirt bottle to spray the coffee filter 2 or 3 times.
• I like to squirt right in the center of the filter and then sit and watch the water wick the colours over the filter (this takes 4 or 5 minutes).
• Young children will tend to over wet the filter...  The project still works, but it won't turn out quite as pretty (the colours tend to blend too much if you soak the filter)  To help prevent this, encourage them to squirt it just once in the middle and watch for a bit for so they can see the process unfold.  You can always add more water later if it doesn't get wet all the way to the edge after 5 minutes or so.
• Let dry (this takes about 1/2 an hour, but will take longer if the filter has been soaked by an over-zealous crafter!)
• Scrunch the coffee filter so you can wrap a pipecleaner around the center.
• Twist the pipecleaner to hold the coffee filter tightly.  Leave the ends of the pipecleaner about the same length.
• Trim the pipecleaner as you like (we took off about 2 inches) so the antenna are the length you like and the pipecleaner ends are matching lengths.
• Curl the pipecleaner (if you like) to make nice antenna.
• Fluff the wings a little bit to make a perfectly lovely little butterfly!

Ideas for Displaying Your Butterfly:

• You can hang your creation in the window for the light to shine through or in a group from the ceiling.
• You can attach a few together to make a springtime butterfly mobile.  I like to hang my mobiles from paper towel rolls wrapped in construction paper or wrapping paper.
• My daughter wants to hang 12 of them from a long string (along with beads) and hang it from her door.  She wants to do about 10 of these strings across her door to make a 'beads and butterflies curtain' to walk through... I'm pretty sure the cat would destroy the curtain in less than a day *chuckle*.
• You can also attach them to home made greeting cards or gifts.

Printable version of these instructions