This craft is easier than it maybe first seems and produces really pretty paper butterflies. One thing about doing art with kids that is intended for decoration, (or that you would like to just as a by-product be decoration) is providing them with a color palette. In my ideal, everything in the house is pretty, so I like the kid crafts I make to be genuinely beautiful too. One of the best ways to do that is harness a concept of certain hues that will all look good together.

I really liked coffee filters as an art material so this has prompted an immediate desire to brainstorm other ways to use them for crafts. Kind of like a possible less expensive tissue paper? Would have to price check but I think it is. Especially how with the below method you can make  any color you’d like readily!

And this is a great celebration of summer crafting because one step is easiest when you have some nice bright sunshine for your papers to dry in! And a real butterfly may float by while you’re making them.

MATERIALS

1. two coffee filters
2. tape
3. markers
4. spray water bottle
5. scrap of cardboard
6. pipe cleaner

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Tape coffee filters to a table. (You may want a bleed sheet underneath). Color on coffee filters with regular kid markers. Shapes, a design – anything works.
2. Place colored coffee filters onto a scrap of cardboard (perhaps outside) and spray with water until all of coffee filter is wet.
3. Place coffee filters in sun to dry.
4. Fold coffee filters like an accordion (separately).
5. Twist pipe cleaner around center of accordions to connect them. Fan out paper. Adjust pipe cleaner to look like antennae.

In my experience, kids thought these were really exciting and special and the way they came together at the end was fun reveal.

You may also like this painted binoculars craft, how to actually do some art with children, and favorite kid art supplies that make it easy.