DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Coffee Filter Earth Fairy or Mother Earth Craft

Coffee filter 'coloring' is something I really enjoy doing.  The kids always have to beat me off so they get a chance to color the filters too *blushes*.

This is one of those crafts that's really simple for little kids (toddlers and preschool) but remains fun as you get older.

Materials:

• 2 coffee filters
• blue and/or green washable markers (we used crayola brand)
• squirt bottle or small glass of water
• Printer,
• paper,
• something to color with,
• scissors,
• tape or glue

Note:  You can complete this project using food colouring instead of washable markers.  However!  I find this option to be very messy so would not do it with young children (if they get food colouring on their clothing you won't be able to get it out).  I would only use this option with children over age 10 and even then would want a good amount of supervision and old clothes to be worn.

Instructions:

• Flatten out the coffee filters on a plate.
• Scribble them both with blue and green washable markers.

• Use a squirt bottle to spray the coffee filters 2 or 3 times.
• I like to squirt right in the center of the filter and then sit and watch the water wick the colours over the filter (this takes 4 or 5 minutes).
• Young children will tend to over wet the filter...  The project still works, but it won't turn out quite as pretty (the colours tend to blend too much if you soak the filter)  To help prevent this, encourage them to squirt it just once in the middle and watch for a bit for so they can see the process unfold.  You can always add more water later if it doesn't get wet all the way to the edge after 5 minutes or so.
• Let dry (this takes about 1/2 an hour, but will take longer if the filter has been soaked by an over-zealous crafter!).
• Scrunch the first coffee filter in the middle and wrap a piece of tape around it.  This is going to be the fairy's wings.
• Take the second filter and fold it in half.
• Cut a triangle out of both sides of the folded coffee filter to give your fairy arms.
• Fold the arms over and glue or tape so it looks like she is holding her hands in front of her.
• Tape the wings to the back of the fairy.
• For the head, you have a few options:
  • print the template attached and use the young face for a fairy or the older face for Mother Earth.
  • Cut a real face from a photo and use that.
  • Draw a face on your own and use that.

Templates:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Template      color   or    B&W

Print friendly version of these instructions