Coffee Filter Fairies || DIY Craft For Kids

A creative child's craft for creating whimsical fairies with coffee paper, markers, and pipe cleaners.

With not many places to go, paired with the bitter cold of winter months, we have found ourselves looking for something new to bide our time. Every now and then, we get crafty to remedy it. This time, we used coffee filters and pipe cleaners to create whimsical fairies for imaginative play. And they have been a hit around here for a couple of weeks now.

Not only did the crafting part give the girls something to do, but the finished pieces were new toys for them to play with. An easy win-win for everyone! This craft provided experience for gross and fine motor skills as well as the opportunity to explore colors. So the girls were able to learn, while also being creative. Everyone had fun, and that's what counts!

Keep scrolling for the simple step-by-step tutorial for making your own coffee filter fairies!

You need minimal supplies for this particular DIY. What I love about this supply list, is that you will have an abundance of supplies leftover for future crafts!

What You'll Need

Pipe Cleaners - any color you like
White coffee filters
Water droppers
Colored Markers
Scissors
Paper plates
Cooling rack

What You'll Do

Start by flattening out one coffee filter.
Using colored markers, color designs all over one side of the coffee filter. You can use this as an opportunity to to learn how colors are created (ex: what color does blue + yellow make). Our girls opted for pink, green, and red for their fairies.

The entire filter does not have to be colored. This is where the water comes into play in the next steps!

Once you have a small stack of colored coffee filters, transfer one at a time to a paper plate.
Using a water dropper, slowly drop water all the colored side of the filter. This allows the colors to bleed into one another and across the surface of the of filter. You can pick the filter up to let excess water run in different directions.

You don't necessarily want to soak the filter, but it doesn't hurt anything if it does get soaked!

Lay out on a drying rack so that the filters can completely dry before taking the next steps in the process.
Once dry, follow the photos below for folding + cutting the filters to make skirts for the fairies.
You will also use a plain white coffee filters, folding and cutting them as shown below, to create a second skirt to give the fairies a little extra pizazz.
Once all filters have been cut, you will pair one colored filter with one white filter, putting the white filter on the bottom. Folding the two stacked filters in half, cut a small hole in the center (shown in photo below). This will be used for placing the pipe cleaners.
For the pipe cleaners (follow the photos below):

You will need 1 and a half pipe cleaners for each fairy.
Fold one pipe cleaner in half. About 1" down from the center bend, twist the pipe cleaner to create the head to your fairy. Thread the lower half through the hole in the coffee filter, and twist to secure it in place.
Using the half size of the pipe cleaner, slide it through the middle of the "body" part of the pipe cleaner that you just threaded through the coffee filters. Wrap it 2 times around to secure it in place. Adjust your new fairy arms however you'd like them to look. Maybe like a ballerina, with arms above her head!