Coffee Filter Art

1. Coffee filters, bleached white
2. Watercolor paints, brushes and cups for water OR markers and spray bottles filled with water or wet paintbrushes.

1. Open filter up and lay it down flat.
2. Now fold coffee filter in half and in half again (and one more time if you want!).
3. Wet the watercolor paints so they are really wet!
   • If you want to be messy, you can roll the filter in the different colored paints.
   • If you want a slightly neater project, you can use brushes and paint on the filter.
4. Open to dry.

1. Keep filter open.
2. Draw design on filter using markers.
3. When finished, spray filter with water or brush with wet paintbrush.

For more tips, or if you need more information or would like to talk to someone: In Washington State: Call the Family Help Line at 1-800-932-HOPE (4673) Outside of Washington State: contact your local Circle of Parents agency

Crowns

1. White poster board-long
2. Scissors
3. Crayons, markers
4. Glue/Glitter (optional)
5. Scotch Tape

1. Cut a strip of poster paper approx. 1-1/2" wide, and about 28" long.
   
   
2. Wrap the strip around child’s head to make a circle. Trim to fit. This will the headband base for the crown, but don’t tape it shut yet. Take it off child’s head.
   
3. Brush white glue on what will be the outside of the headband and cover with glitter or tissue paper. Or, just color with markers and crayons.
   
4. When crown is dry, wrap it again around the child’s head and tape in place to fit.

For more tips, or if you need more information or would like to talk to someone: In Washington State: Call the Family Help Line at 1-800-932-HOPE (4673) Outside of Washington State: contact your local Circle of Parents agency

Egg Carton Art

• Empty egg cartons
• Scissors
• Paint, markers, or crayons
• Paintbrush
• Pipe cleaner

1. Cut apart an egg carton into individual sections. Make enough so that each child has at least 3 individual sections. Since the surface area is so small, the project goes fast. The more sections you have the more they have to work with.
   
2. Poke a pipe cleaner through the bottom of each section to make a stem. You could ask older children to do this prep work.

1. Have the children paint the sections with a variety of colors. (Markers or crayons can also be used.)
   
2. You can wait for the “flowers” to dry by putting them in a bud vase (or Dixie cup) and use them as a centerpiece at your table!

Magnets

• Heavy poster board or light cardboard
• Magnetic tape strips or magnetic buttons.
• Crayons, markers, pencils, etc.
• Scissors
• Cookie cutters (optional)

1. You can purchase magnetic strips or buttons at most fabric stores. They are usually pretty cheap.
2. Try to buy the self-adhesive kind, or else you’ll need to pre-glue the magnets to the back of the poster board.
3. You can pre-cut the poster board to any shapes you want, but if you have older children you may want to leave some sheets alone so that they can make whatever shape they want. Cookie cutters can be traced for cutout shapes.
4. After the shapes are cut, affix the magnet to what will be the back of the shape.
5. Decorate: Your children can now decorate their own magnets to hang on the refrigerator or anywhere else they want!

Magnetic tape can be found at most fabric and craft stores. Other types of magnetic backing are available too.

For more tips, or if you need more information or would like to talk to someone: In Washington State: Call the Family Help Line at 1-800-932-HOPE (4673) Outside of Washington State: contact your local Circle of Parents agency

Instruments

Materials:

• Empty toilet paper tubes: enough for one/child.
• Muffin papers or contact paper
• Markers, crayons, and/or paint, stickers
• Wax paper
• Dried beans or rice

1. If you are using muffin paper, cover one of the open ends of the toilet paper roll. Wrap tape around it to seal tightly.
   
   
2. If you are using contact paper, trace the open end of the roll on the contact paper. Increase the diameter by about 2 inches so there will be overhang. Cut out the circle of contact paper. Secure the contact paper around one end of the toilet paper roll.
   
   
3. Fill the tube with something that will rattle—like dried beans or rice.
   
   
4. Seal the other end of the tube the same way you sealed the first.
   
   
5. If you have older children, they can prep the tubes for the younger children. Keep very young children away from an activity with something as small as beans—they could stick the beans in their nose and that could lead to a breathing problem, or irritation and infection.
   
   
6. After the tubes are sealed, the children can decorate. Gluing on heavy objects probably isn’t a good idea because it will take too long to dry and they won’t be able to shake the shakers until the glue sets.

1. Color the paper roll and decorate with stickers if you want.
2. Trace the end of the toilet paper roll on the wax paper. Increase the diameter of the shape by 2-3 inches so there will be an overhang. Cut the shape.
3. Use a rubber band to secure the wax paper onto one end of the roll.
4. Using a pencil, poke 4 to 6 holes in the wax paper
5. You can now hum through the wax paper hole to make a sound like a kazoo.

For more tips, or if you need more information or would like to talk to someone: In Washington State: Call the Family Help Line at 1-800-932-HOPE (4673) Outside of Washington State: contact your local Circle of Parents agency

Painted Rocks

• Rocks, stones
• Acrylic paints
• Paint brushes
• Water, cloth for wiping brushes.

For more tips, or if you need more information or would like to talk to someone: In Washington State: Call the Family Help Line at 1-800-932-HOPE (4673) Outside of Washington State: contact your local Circle of Parents agency

Painted Butterflies

• Pre-cut construction paper butterflies
• Tempera paints work best, but watercolors will do in a pinch

1. Take a piece of construction paper—white or light colors work best.
2. Fold it in half. Press hard on the crease.
3. Draw outline of half a butterfly
4. Cut out butterfly. Make at least one per child.

1. Keep the cutout butterfly folded when you give it to the children to paint.
2. Paint the cutout, but on only one side. It works best when there is a good amount of white space left.
3. Open the butterfly.
4. Fold the butterfly in on itself, so the paint side is now on the inside.
5. Press down on paper; you can rub from top to bottom too, but rub gently.
6. Carefully open butterfly to see design.

For more tips, or if you need more information or would like to talk to someone: In Washington State: Call the Family Help Line at 1-800-932-HOPE (4673) Outside of Washington State: contact your local Circle of Parents agency

Paper Chains

• Lots of construction paper (actually almost any kind of paper is fine, except newspaper. You’d get inky. Wrapping paper gives an interesting look to this activity.)
• Scissors
• An adhesive—either glue sticks or scotch tape. Enough for each adult and child to have their own. Tape is better for most paper.

1. Starting at the long side of the paper, cut strips one to two inches wide. Make a lot. Tons. As many as you can stand to make. The more paper strips, the longer the chain.
   
   
2. Lay the pieces out on the table
   
   
3. Get your glue or tape ready!

1. Choose your first strip and glue or tape the ends together.
2. If gluing, hold it a few seconds until the glue dries and the shape holds.
3. Add another strip by looping it through the first and gluing its ends together. Now you have two links in your chain.
4. Continue adding strips.
5. When the chain is long enough, hang it up!

For more tips, or if you need more information or would like to talk to someone: In Washington State: Call the Family Help Line at 1-800-932-HOPE (4673) Outside of Washington State: contact your local Circle of Parents agency

Stained Glass

• Tissue paper of many colors, some pre-torn into bits—no smaller than 1”x1”.
• Liquid starch or school glue diluted with water.
• Glass bottles, cleaned, with labels removed (baby food jars work great. Salad dressing and wine bottles too)
• Brushes (short stiff ones are best)
• Protective covering for the worktable and smocks. This is very messy. When the tissue paper comes into contact with liquid, the colors of the paper bleed onto anything they touch. And it stains, so cover up!

1. Paint a small section of the glass jar with liquid laundry starch, or instead of starch you can use a solution of school glue diluted with water (about one cup glue to ¼ cup water). It won’t give you quite the same glossy effect, but it’s close. You can experiment and even mix the starch with the glue and water!
   
   
2. Start placing the torn bits of tissue paper on top of the wet area.
   
   
3. Brush more starch on top of paper.
   
   
4. Work small areas at a time, continuing to layer on starch and paper, overlapping occasional sections and edges of paper.
   
   
5. You will need to watch and make sure that not too much starch is used, or the colors will all bleed together.
   
   
6. When finished, don’t touch the jars until they dry completely.
   
   
7. After the bottles/jars are dry, you can finish it off with a coat of varnish to make it glossy and have it last a bit longer.

Stick Puppets

• Stack of 4x6 unlined index cards
• Craft/Popsicle sticks
• Scotch tape or glue sticks
• Markers, crayons, pencils

1. Take an index card and fold it in half horizontally.
2. Using tape or glue stick, seal three sides—leaving one of the short ends open.
3. Take a craft stick and stick it a few inches inside that open side.
4. Secure the stick with glue or tape.
5. Once the children get started it’s hard to stop—so make sure you have a big supply of pre-made puppets on hand!

• You can draw traditional people-puppets or you can draw abstract art on the “puppet”.
• Remember that the stick puppets have a front and back so your children can decorate both sides.

For more tips, or if you need more information or would like to talk to someone: In Washington State: Call the Family Help Line at 1-800-932-HOPE (4673) Outside of Washington State: contact your local Circle of Parents agency