Coffee Filter Watercolour Butterflies

You can make these sweet little butterflies with your toddler child easily with just a few supplies. This project is a little more advanced, so they will need some adult help for the later steps. They will love to see what happens to marker when you spray it with water.

Supplies You’ll Need:

• coffee filter
• pipe cleaner
• washable coloured markers
• spray bottle with a little water

Please note before beginning that this project is a two-parter. First, you need to make the water colour background. You can only turn it into a butterfly after it dries, so you may want to introduce the project as just water-colouring and “magically” turn the art into the butterfly the next day after it’s completely dry.

Part 1: Child’s Turn

1. Give the child the coffee filter and let them go crazy with their markers. It looks best with just one or two similar colours, like blue and purple or orange and yellow. Of course, let your child be as creative as they’d like.
2. Once they are finished, help the child lightly spray the coffee filter. The marker will immediately spread out and look quite pretty.

Let the coffee filter dry completely before starting part 2.

Part 2: Adult’s Turn (but get the child involved!)

1. Lay the coffee filter flat on the table and start folding it like an accordion, about half an inch in width each time. Continue folding it this way and that way until you run out of coffee filter.
   
   
2. Wrap the pipe cleaner around the centre of the accordian and pull both ends towards the top.
   
3. Twist the ends of the pipe cleaner outwards to make antennae.
4. Use your fingers to pull the folds apart so that you have beautiful butterfly wings.

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