The Playful Parent

SPRING BUTTERFLY & UMBRELLA COFFEE FILTER CRAFT

This craft is quick, simple, and fun. You can also make it educational; practicing identifying colors, drawing shapes, and making patterns.

My mother visits us from Michigan every summer and insisted we have a coffee pot for when she is here for those few days. The coffee filters I bought for it were a set of 200 and if I don’t start finding more uses for them they may last longer than a Twinkie. So we used some for crafts!

Supplies:

– Coffee filter

– Watercolors

– OR markers and a spray bottle

– Pipe cleaner for the butterfly

– Construction paper/cardstock and glue stick for the umbrella

– Newspaper to protect work surface

– Wax paper (optional) to protect work surface

Markers:

Let your little one color the coffee filter with markers. They can explore with patterns and shapes or just scribble. When they are all done, mist it with the water bottle enough so that the colors blend and let dry.

The pink butterfly is the coffee filter my daughter is working on here. When I saw how light it turned out after being sprayed, I made the blue and green one in the umbrella by quickly scribbling some thicker stripes – my objective was to fill as much space as I could with the marker.

Watercolors:

This method is simple; let them go to town with some watercolors and then let it dry. (This is where the wax paper came in handy, so she didn’t drench the newspaper and my table.) By the end, hers got rather muddy but it’s still pretty and she had fun.

Assembly:

I put them together after she went to bed and just had them set out for her the next day. However, depending on the age and skill level of your kids, they should be able to do this part with you.

Butterfly – Fold the pipe cleaner in half then scrunch/pinch/gather the coffee filter in the center. Put the pipe cleaner over the center and twist a few times. The white antennas I curled by wrapping around my finger, the orange one I wrapped around a pen.

Umbrella – Cut a handle shape (the letter J) out of your paper. Fold your coffee filter in half and glue together, then glue your handle to the bottom. I highly recommend using cardstock if your little one is going to run around with it like a real umbrella. The construction paper would be great if you wanted to hang it in a window, similar to a sun catcher.

Spring Poem:

***This project was brought to you by The Playful Parent team member Heather! Heather is a new writer for The Playful Parent, in fact this is her first project shared on the site. She works from home all while balancing her daughter’s schedule, craft projects, sewing projects, and trying to build her own business: Fairy Geekmother:  https://www.facebook.com/FairyGeekmother/. I’m so excited to have a professional crafter on board to keep ideas fun and creative!***