I love that the tie dye trend is so popular right now! It brings such a bright and cheery vibe to any setting with all of the vibrant, bold colors! I have seen this cute Tie Dye Butterfly idea floating around Pinterest and wanted to give it a try with my three year old daughter! It’s one of those great craft ideas you just can’t mess up! Each butterfly turns out unique! Also, it uses inexpensive supplies you may already have at home!
This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you click and buy, I may receive a small commission (at zero cost to you). Please see my Full Disclosure and Policy for details.
Materials needed:
Directions:
Flatten the coffee filters with your hand.
Craft table ready to use! Make sure to place a protective layer or mat down onto your table surface. The markers will bleed through the coffee filters. This is the silicone placemat we used.
Randomly color on the coffee filters with the markers. There is no right or wrong way to do this! You can layer two coffee filters together at a time if you want identical wings.
I wanted to join in on the fun as well and colored a few also! 🙂
Place two coffee filters at a time in a tray. Have a bowl of water and the liquid dropper ready to use!
Drop the water onto the coffee filters. The more saturated they are with water, the more the colors will run together.
Tip: If you chose to layer and draw on two coffee filters at one time make sure to keep them layered together when you drop the water on them. This will help the top (more vibrant) filter bleed more color onto the second one.
Allow to dry completely. We put ours outside in the sun to dry faster. Unfortunately, it was a very windy day so we used Ambrey’s molded crayons as weights to prevent them from blowing away. Whatever you use as a weight could leave an outline on the filter, so keep that in mind. 🙂
We liked how they all turned out different! I do want to note that the pink Mr. Sketch marker did not bleed very well when water was applied.
Choose two filters you want for the wings. Fold each (accordion style) back and fourth.
Place the folded coffee filters on top of each other. Bend a pipe cleaner in half around the middle of the filters towards the front and twist 2-3 times. Wrap the ends of the pipe cleaner around a pencil to form the antennas. Pull wings apart!
Ambrey really loved seeing the butterflies come to life! She was flying them around the house afterwards!
This is definitely a craft we will keep on hand to complete again! It was a lot of fun to see how different each butterfly turned out! Especially when they look like tie dye! 🙂
