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Home / Early Learning / How to Create Absolutely Beautiful Flowers with Coffee Filter Art

How to Create Absolutely Beautiful Flowers with Coffee Filter Art

Shared by Mary Catherine 44 Comments

Below you’ll find directions for making beautiful coffee filter art flowers with kids. I even have free printable templates for you to grab at the end of the post. What a great addition to your spring activities for preschoolers and kindergarten kids.

I love art.

Science with kids is something else I adore.

And I love teaching children, whether they’re kindergartners, preschoolers, or my own son.

How about you? If so, why not combine all three of these passions into one super fun science and art project? That’s what we’ve done with our spring coffee filter art.

Are you following Fun-A-Day’s Flower & Plants Theme Pinterest board?

Coffee filter art project for preschool

Table of Contents

  • Coffee Filter Art Flowers are a Favorite
  • Materials Needed for Spring Coffee Filter Art
    • How to prep this activity
  • Directions for Making Coffee Filter Art Flowers
    • Then let those little art scientists at it!
  • Learning with Beautiful Spring Flower Coffee Filter Art
  • Preschool Lesson Plans for Spring
  • Free Printable Flower Template

Coffee Filter Art Flowers are a Favorite

These coffee filter flowers are one of my favorite art projects to do with kids. Of course, my son likes to say that I have a lot of favorite art and science activities, “like you have a lot of favorite books!” He’s got a point, but I digress.

When I first tried this with my preschoolers, I went in knowing they’d enjoy it. However, I couldn’t have predicted their level of interest!! We were practically drowning in beautiful flowers when we were done.

And over the years I’ve discovered that wasn’t a one-time deal. Every group of kids I’ve done this with has gotten into it so much that we ended up with tons of beautiful spring art. What a great problem to have!

In addition to the enjoyment factor, the children learned a lot about science, math, and art concepts along the way.

Materials Needed for Spring Coffee Filter Art

I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Coffee filters (I know . . . you were so surprised this one made the list 😉 )
Liquid watercolors
Glass jars
Eye droppers
Wax paper (this is key!)

You can find material suggestions on my Amazon Coffee Filter Art list.

Don’t forget to grab the free printable template at the bottom of the post too!

Liquid watercolors and eye droppers ready to make coffee filter art

Related: Coffee Filter Solar System

How to prep this activity

Using the school’s die-cut machine, I cut out a zillion flowers from a stack of coffee filters. Okay, so it probably wasn’t a zillion! I’m glad I was able to get my hands on a die-cut machine, as this project extended farther than I originally planned (meaning I had to go back a few times to make more coffee filter flowers)!

Hand-cutting the flowers wouldn’t have been difficult, though, just more time consuming. You can also have the kids free-hand cut their own flowers, or use a template to trace before cutting.

If you’d prefer, I made two flower templates you can print and use. They’re available at the bottom of this post.

Next up, squirt some liquid watercolors into a few containers. I used a variety of old glass jars I had on-hand. I’ve found that the glass jars work best for holding the liquid watercolors, as the jars are less prone to tipping over. Unless you’re like me and you knock them over, of course!

Investigating absorption with a fun coffee filter art project - coffee filter flowers

Related: Free Printable Counting Flowers Book

Directions for Making Coffee Filter Art Flowers

I highly recommend that you place down a piece of wax paper to serve as each child’s work space. With each child, I placed a piece of wax paper down and wrote his name on it with permanent marker. The wax paper helped contain any escaping watercolors and made it easier to take the coffee filter flowers over to our drying rack.

Show the kids how to use an eye dropper in case they need that instruction (or that reminder). I reviewed how to use an eye dropper with the children, just in case.

Then let those little art scientists at it!

I loved watching how each kid took on their coffee filter flowers.

Some children excitedly splatted large amounts of paint onto the coffee filters at first. This led to a great discussion of over-saturation versus saturation!

Once they’d experimented with over-saturating the flowers, the kiddos were much more intentional about dropping the paint sparingly. Well, unless they were enthusiastically experimenting with over-saturation!

Beautiful coffee filter art flowers

Related: Colorful Tape and Watercolor Canvas

Using the eye droppers, the children watched how the watercolors were absorbed by the coffee filter flowers.

The first year we did this, we ended up doing this experiment on and off for more than 5 days. Every successive year I’ve tried this with kids, I’ve made sure to plan extra time for the project.

We enjoyed exploring with different colors and types of liquid watercolors. This allowed us to see that some were absorbed much quicker than others. A few of the kids and I explored this in-depth, “racing” some of the colors on the flowers. We found that the glitter watercolors were absorbed a lot less quickly than the regular watercolors. We hypothesized it was because the glitter watercolors are thicker.

In addition to saturation and absorption, we delved into color theory a bit too. There were grand exclamations about making new colors by mixing some of the paints!

The concept that red and yellow make orange is so much more meaningful to a child when she’s making that discovery herself. The kids also noticed that the darker colors sometimes overtook the lighter colors.

Science and art fun with coffee filter art flowers

Related: Kid-Made Cupcake Liner Flowers

Learning with Beautiful Spring Flower Coffee Filter Art

Here are some of the concepts we explored with this awesome science and art project:

  • Absorption
  • Color mixing
  • Saturation
  • Fine motor skills
  • Color identification

These coffee filter flowers look gorgeous displayed in the window.

We decided we liked the flowers better when they’re taped directly to the window, as the colors are brighter. That’s in comparison to placing the flowers on a piece of contact paper to display in the window.

We even used these gorgeous coffee filter flowers to make mixed-media Mother’s Day handprint art as presents. I think they’d be great for gifts for anyone in the family, too.

Explore science and art concepts with coffee filter art flowers

Preschool Lesson Plans for Spring

Save time and jump right into hands-on, multi-sensory learning fun with done-for-you lesson plans. Each of our preschool lesson plan packs come with:

  • Printable plans (both a one-sheet grid plan and multi-page plans that describe the learning activities)
  • Whole group ideas
  • Small group activities
  • Center time activities
  • Book suggestions
  • Related printables (read below the photo for specific printables)
  • Blank, editable lesson plan outlines in case you want to rearrange a few things on your own!

Click on each photo below to read more about the lesson plans:

Preschool lesson plans - flowers
Spring lesson plans
Butterfly lesson plans

Free Printable Flower Template

As promised, I put together two flower templates you can use if you don’t have a die-cut machine and don’t want to freehand the cutting.

If you’re a member of Fun-A-Day’s free email community, just enter your information and you’ll be able to get the printable.

Not a member? No worries! Enter your information below to join, and you’ll get the templates as a welcome gift.

Originally published April 2015

Explore science and art concepts with coffee filter flowers - an awesome coffee filter art project for kids

Filed Under: Early Learning, Preschool Arts and Crafts Tagged With: Flowers & Plants, Process Art, Spring

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  1. Kristine White says

    April 23, 2015 at 8:28 pm

    I’ll be teaching PreK next year and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this!! I cannot wait to do this with my kiddos! We don’t have windows in our classroom, but there are windows in the hallway outside of our classroom and they will look amazing there!!!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      April 24, 2015 at 3:53 pm

      Thank you so much!! I’d love to see how they turned out! 🙂

      Reply
    • Amber Wilson says

      March 26, 2019 at 9:13 pm

      I love this!!…. Do you have pics if the canvas art you did for mother’s day?

      Reply
      • Mary Catherine says

        March 26, 2019 at 9:22 pm

        Thank you! It is definitely a favorite! Click here to read the post about the Mother’s Day gift we did (they were a hit with families and kids, alike).

        Reply
  2. Devany says

    April 24, 2015 at 8:05 am

    The wax paper is a key tip! You’re brilliant (and such a fun teacher)!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      April 25, 2015 at 3:53 pm

      And you’re just plain awesome! Thanks for the kind words, as always!!!!

      Reply
  3. The Little Tourist says

    April 29, 2015 at 1:49 pm

    This is such a cute idea! I love that it’s simple, but is one the my kids will still thoroughly enjoy!
    Thanks for sharing 😉

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      April 30, 2015 at 3:54 pm

      Yes, sometimes simple is really the best! Thank you!!!

      Reply
  4. Linda says

    May 1, 2015 at 5:03 pm

    Would be fun to do in autumn with leaf die-cuts!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      May 2, 2015 at 3:56 pm

      Definitely!

      Reply
  5. Deanna says

    March 20, 2016 at 11:19 am

    I love this idea as it stipple for the little ones to do. I teach nursery and pre school and always looking for fun and simple crafts. Thanks for your creative ideas!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      March 21, 2016 at 4:53 pm

      Thanks so much for the kind words, Deanna!!

      Reply
  6. karen blake says

    April 4, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    Can you use just regular children’s paint?

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      April 4, 2016 at 6:33 pm

      I’m not sure if it would work as well, honestly, but I haven’t tried it. Food coloring (maybe watered down a little) would be another option!

      Reply
  7. Abhilasha says

    April 6, 2016 at 2:17 am

    Hi Mary,

    I do visit your visit when I need some activities to help my kids learn. Your posts are always useful for me. Many thanks for sharing such art and craft ideas.

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      April 6, 2016 at 10:11 pm

      Thank you so much for your kind words! 🙂

      Reply
  8. Jami Koester says

    February 13, 2018 at 3:24 pm

    This is maybe a silly question, but how do you stick them to your window? Scotch tape? I don’t see tape thru your flower. Just wondering how you got them to stick so well. That’s a lot of flowers to stick up so I bet you had a great method!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      February 13, 2018 at 5:24 pm

      Not a silly question at all – I need to go back and add that into the post itself! We ended up just putting a piece of clear tape on the back and putting them up in the window that way. We tried using Contact paper, too, and that worked out okay but didn’t give us the same effect when the sun shone through the windows. Plus, with a single piece of tape, it was a lot easier to take the flowers down so the kids could bring them home or use them in other art projects (as long as I was careful removing the flowers from the window). Sorry I don’t have a better idea for you! 🙂

      Reply
      • Lucette says

        March 22, 2018 at 11:08 am

        I have used double stick tape for similar projects in the past. It can be a little difficult to remove but worth it!

        Reply
        • Mary Catherine says

          March 22, 2018 at 4:23 pm

          That’s good to know! Maybe I’ll give that one a try next time. 🙂

          Reply
  9. Britt says

    March 27, 2018 at 8:06 am

    How did you get the colours to be so bright? When we did this the dye became see through and it made some of the kids sad that it didn’t transfer on the paper well enough. What’s the water to food dye ratio?

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      March 27, 2018 at 10:06 am

      Hi, Britt! We didn’t use food dye for this. We used liquid watercolors (see the supply section of this post), and we didn’t dilute with any water. The colors were lovely! Because it’s done on coffee filters, the flowers do become somewhat see through (as you can tell by the photos) once they’re dried. But not overly so. Hope that helps!

      Reply
  10. kay lovin says

    March 11, 2019 at 12:08 pm

    how do i cut the coffee filters by hand? I don’t have anything else to cut them with.Also my mom used to cut out lots of kids all hooked together do you know how?

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      March 14, 2019 at 10:22 am

      I’ve done it before where I just grabbed a stack of coffee filters and cut the flowers free-hand. I should look into making a template to add to this post. Oh I love what your mom was able to do. I haven’t done that in ages, so I’m not sure how best to describe how to do so.

      Reply
  11. Kathleen says

    September 23, 2019 at 5:38 pm

    How do you stick them to the windows?

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      September 24, 2019 at 1:57 pm

      Hi Kathleen! I just used a little bit of invisible tape, looped in on itself. And then I very carefully removed the tape when taking the flowers down so the kids could take them home. Hope that helps. 🙂

      Reply
  12. Carol says

    March 4, 2020 at 12:12 pm

    Will liquid tempera paint work?

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      March 4, 2020 at 8:36 pm

      I haven’t tried it with tempera paint, but I don’t think it would work as well (since tempera tends to be thicker). If you try it out, please let me know how it worked!

      Reply
  13. LIsa says

    March 19, 2020 at 11:32 am

    I can’t wait to try this with my kids. As we are now homeschooling until school resumes I’m looking for art projects to keep things creative. As today is first day of spring, this will be a great project to do. Happy creating!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      March 19, 2020 at 12:55 pm

      Oh I’m so happy to hear you’ll be trying this! Please let me know how it goes.

      Reply
  14. Linda says

    May 4, 2020 at 5:09 pm

    need coffee filter flower template

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      May 4, 2020 at 5:38 pm

      It’s at the bottom of the post under the heading “Free Printable Flower Template” – there’s a little form to fill out to get it sent to your email.

      Reply
  15. Kelly Roiz says

    August 21, 2020 at 10:11 am

    Love this site!!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      August 21, 2020 at 9:41 pm

      Thank you so much for the kind words!!! 🙂

      Reply
  16. Mary MacMichael says

    March 5, 2021 at 12:39 pm

    Mary Catherine!
    So good to see your name and participate in your adventure of offering fun activities to teachers, parents and grandparents of pre schoolers!
    I do want to try this out on my 4 yo granddaughter!!
    Thanks

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      April 8, 2021 at 4:59 pm

      I was SO happy to see your name here, Mary! I cannot wait to hear how your granddaughter is enjoying the activities here. 🙂

      Reply
  17. Elsie SARCHET says

    April 13, 2021 at 12:53 pm

    CAN I HAVE A FLOWER PATTERN? THANKS

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      April 14, 2021 at 10:51 am

      Hi Elsie! As indicated in the post, you can sign up for the template to be emailed to you via the form near the very bottom. Thanks!

      Reply
  18. amnda says

    April 14, 2021 at 7:09 am

    looking for printable flower

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      April 14, 2021 at 10:50 am

      Hi there. As indicated in the post, you can sign up to have the template emailed to you via the large form near the bottom of the post. Thanks!

      Reply
  19. lisa says

    April 14, 2021 at 11:45 pm

    i would like the flower template so i can get started this is perfect for spring

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      April 15, 2021 at 10:22 am

      Hi Lisa, As indicated in the post, you can sign up to have the template emailed to you in the large form at the bottom.

      Reply
  20. Chantal says

    August 3, 2021 at 2:50 pm

    I can’t wait to use the flower template!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      August 3, 2021 at 7:38 pm

      Yay! Let me know how it goes, Chantal!

      Reply
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My name is Mary Catherine, and I love to share meaningful {and fun} learning activities for kiddos! Feel free to browse and stay awhile!

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