Butterfly Coffee Filter Art

I have noticed the fascination that Wugs has for blending and mixing colours at the moment so I thought we would experiment with this very inexpensive craft.

What we used:

Coffee filter paper (I found filter paper for 4-6 cups is an ideal size especially if they are to feature on A5 cards)

Washable felt tip pens/markers

Squirty bottle of water or a dropper

Coloured popsicle sticks

Glue

I gave Wugs the felt tip pens and let him colour in one side of the filter paper.  Once he had finished, we took a squirty bottle (we used an empty Ecover bottle, washed it out thoroughly and filled it with water) and I let him squirt once or twice on to the filter paper.  The colours of the felt tip pens blended into one another as the water seeped into the paper to create this beautiful effect.  We left them to dry on a tray for a couple of hours.

Once the filter paper had dried, I cut the two sides and trimmed the edges and then pulled out the filter paper completely.  Up until this point I didn’t know how we would use the art, but the mirror effect of the colours on both sides of the filter paper reminded me of a butterfly.  I glued the coloured popsicle sticks down the centre of the coffee filter paper and then used double-sided tape to glue them to my kitchen window.  The kitchen in our apartment doesn’t get much natural light, so the butterflies were a uplifting, colourful addition to a dark room.

Here are some gift cards we made from our coffee filter butterflies: