Over the years, we’ve made hundreds of coffee filter flowers. It’s one of my go-to art projects in my list of spring activities for preschoolers because it’s both super easy to set up and super engaging.
The children can explore so many different concepts with the coffee filter flower art, too. From math to science to fine motor skills, there’s a lot going for this simple little project. Most importantly, it is FUN for both kids and adults, alike.
Plus, it’s very easy to go from making coffee filter art flowers to making all kinds of other coffee filter art. I love when I can tweak a concept to fit many different themes.
Related: Spring Activities for Preschoolers
Below I’ll share tips and ideas for your flower-themed coffee filter art project. I wasn’t joking when I said we’ve made hundreds over the years. In fact, that number might be in the thousands at this point. So I’ve happened upon a few points to share about this art idea.
Also, you can grab a free printable flower template at the very bottom of this post. After multiple requests from Fun-A-Day readers, my friend Angie (hi, Angie!) helped me make that a reality for you.
Coffee Filter Flowers
These are seriously 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!
I keep referring to spring, as that’s when we often have a flower theme. But, really, this coffee filter flower art can be made any time of the year.
Materials for the Flower Coffee Filter Art
Before we head into the nitty gritty of how to make coffee filter flowers, let’s talk materials. Here’s what we like to use (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 (or plastic containers)
- Eye droppers
- Wax paper (this is key!)
You can find even more material suggestions on my Amazon Coffee Filter Art list. And don’t forget to grab the free printable template at the bottom of the post too!
How to Prep Your Coffee Filter Flowers
There are a few different ways you can get the flowers ready for your students:
I think you can cut multiple coffee filter flowers out whichever way you choose. The die-cut machine is definitely the fastest, though. I’ve only used a manual machine with this, so I’m not positive how well a digital one works.
The first time we made coffee filter flowers, 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 flowers out of coffee filters).
Of course, you can get the children in on the prep work, too. Consider having them free-hand cut their own flowers, or use the template to trace before cutting.
Once you have a multitude of flowers cut out of coffee filters, grab your paint! 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. If you’re concerned about breakage, put the paint in sturdy plastic containers instead.
I highly recommend that you place down a piece of wax paper to serve as each child’s work space. The wax paper helps contain any escaping watercolors and makes it easier to move for drying.
How to Make Watercolor Coffee Filter Flowers
First, explain to the children that they’ll be using liquid watercolors to create art. Then model how to fill the eyedroppers and drip paint onto the coffee filters. Finally, let them get to it!
Your students will interact with the flower art project differently. You might see:
- Meticulous choice of colors and placement of watercolor drops.
- Excited splatting large amounts of paint onto the coffee filters at first.
- Experimenting with mixing colors.
- Testing saturation and oversaturation.
- Using just one color on all of their flower coffee filters.
- Mixing all available colors.
Related: Tape and Watercolor Canvas Art
Of course, you might see your students do something completely different! The point is that each child will approach this art in their own way. Even though the focus is on making flowers, the kids have tons of choice in how to create.
Coffee Filter Flowers Video
I’ve got a video showcasing how to make this lovely coffee filter art. That way you can truly see what I mean when I say this coffee filter art project is super easy. It only has adult hands in it because I’m usually elbow-deep in the art when I set this up for the kids. But it should still help show you the process in-action:
How My Students Created with Their Coffee Filter Art
I loved watching how each child took on their coffee filter flowers. Those who used a ton of paint at first got into 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!
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 they’re making that discovery themself. The kids also noticed that the darker colors sometimes overtook the lighter colors.
What are Kids Learning with This Flower 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
Needless to say, there’s a whole lot of learning opportunities with this art activity! Of course, making art for art’s sake is just as important!
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.
More Coffee Filter Art for Kids
If the coffee filter flowers are a hit with your students, here are some more ideas to try:
- Coffee Filter Planets
- Watercolor Wreath
- Mother’s Day Handprint Art (using the flowers made here, and can be given as a gift to anyone)
- Snowflake Craft
- Coffee Filter Bats
Flower Lesson Plans
Let Preschool Teacher 101 make your teaching life a lot easier with done-for-you early childhood resources. We have lesson plans, circle time songs, STEM challenges, dramatic play packs, classroom management guides, and so much more. Be sure to take a look at The Pack, our membership for preschool and kindergarten teachers. Members have access to our materials at a steep discount.
Click on each photo below to read more about our flower-themed products:
You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers.
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
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!!!
Thank you so much!! I’d love to see how they turned out! 🙂
I love this!!…. Do you have pics if the canvas art you did for mother’s day?
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).
The wax paper is a key tip! You’re brilliant (and such a fun teacher)!
And you’re just plain awesome! Thanks for the kind words, as always!!!!
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 😉
Yes, sometimes simple is really the best! Thank you!!!
Would be fun to do in autumn with leaf die-cuts!
Definitely!
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!
Thanks so much for the kind words, Deanna!!
Can you use just regular children’s paint?
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!
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.
Thank you so much for your kind words! 🙂
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!
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! 🙂
I have used double stick tape for similar projects in the past. It can be a little difficult to remove but worth it!
That’s good to know! Maybe I’ll give that one a try next time. 🙂
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?
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!
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?
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.
How do you stick them to the windows?
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. 🙂
Will liquid tempera paint work?
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!
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!
Oh I’m so happy to hear you’ll be trying this! Please let me know how it goes.
need coffee filter flower template
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.
Love this site!!
Thank you so much for the kind words!!! 🙂
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
I was SO happy to see your name here, Mary! I cannot wait to hear how your granddaughter is enjoying the activities here. 🙂
CAN I HAVE A FLOWER PATTERN? THANKS
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!
looking for printable flower
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!
i would like the flower template so i can get started this is perfect for spring
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.
I can’t wait to use the flower template!
Yay! Let me know how it goes, Chantal!
Beautiful!
Thanks so much, Bridget! The kids did such a wonderful job, didn’t they?! And had a blast while doing so!
so excited to try this!
That’s wonderful to hear, Margarita! Let me know how it goes once you give it a try. 🙂
Thank you for the information.
You’re welcome, Diana! Let me know if you try making the coffee filter flowers.