Coffee Filter Butterfly

Our crafting time this summer has been limited due to visiting with family and friends, attending events around town,  and enjoying the outdoors when it hasn't been smoky (the BC forest fires have been the worst this year!). But I still fit the occasional craft in on days we have nothing planned. 

I have a pile of coffee filters (bought at the dollar store) and so I thought it would be fun to try out a couple of crafts with them. 

The first craft we made was a butterfly.

Supplies Needed:

- 2 coffee filters
- washable markers
- paint brush
- clothespin
- paint
- pipe cleaner

Step 1: Draw a design on each coffee filter with different coloured markers. 

Step 2: Use a paint brush to drop water droplets onto the coffee filters (This was my daughter's favourite part - so fun to watch the colours blend together!).

Tip: Put the coffee filters on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper so that the colours can bleed through onto the wax paper. Just simply throw the piece of wax paper away when you're done - less mess! 

Place each coffee filter onto a piece of paper towel for them to dry. 

Step 3: Paint the clothespin and draw eyes on it with a black marker. (My daughter also drew a mouth :) )

Step 4: Open the clothespin and wrap a pipe cleaner around the back part of the clothespin to create the antenna for the butterfly.

Step 5: Fold each coffee filter into an accordion and clip the clothespin in the middle of each. Spread out the accordion fold to create 4 wings. 

And here you have a beautiful butterfly!