Coffee Filter's are inexpensive and they have many fun and practical uses. We used the basket style filters, which were on sale for less than $1.00 and there were 200 in a package.

The main idea behind the following projects is creating a tie-dye appearance on the coffee filters before making the various crafts. You can do this using one of these methods:

-colored water in eye droppers

-food color added to spray bottles of water

-draw designs with water color markers and mist with plain water

We found the last method worked good for us. Even our 3 year old was able to make her designs by herself. We then placed the finished coffee filter on a paper plate, misted it all over with water from a spray bottle, then transferred it to some newspapers. After it had dried slightly, I finished drying it with a blow-dryer set on low speed. Once you've finished this step you can start crafting.

Coffee Filter Butterflies

Fold and gather your colored coffee filter in an accordion style. At this point you can wrap it with a chenille stem and use it to form antennas. then you can attach wiggle eyes with glue if you wish. Clothes pins are fun too, and you can glue an eye each side of the wood or plastic or draw eyes with a black marker. We also experimented with rolling a small piece of construction paper into a tube and gluing it to the wings. This worked out pretty neat, and is good if you run out of pipe cleaners or clothes pins on a rainy day like we did!

Once the body of the butterfly is finished you can do several other things. Glue a magnet on the back, glue a popsicle stick to the body to create puppet, or if you have a piece of wooden dowel you can make butterfly wands.

About the Author:

Brenda is editor of Old Fashioned Living and a freelance writer. She is also a wife and mom to three kids who love to craft.