• Coffee filters can be used for making more than coffeecoffee filter art image by robert mobley from Fotolia.com
  
  Creativity and using their imaginations are what kids do best. When children have an opportunity to make craft items, they are improving their hands-on skills . Kids can take the simplest of items and turn them into works of art. Supplying a child as young as 3 years old, with a few simple materials such coffee filters, markers and craft items, can keep them busy for hours on a rainy day, weekend or holiday.
  
  

Birthday And Holiday Decorations

• Coffee filters can be used to make inexpensive, birthday favor pouches. Decorate the filters with markers and sprinkle with water for a tie dyed effect.. Fill with candy and tie with ribbon. A variety of festive ornaments can be made using percolator or basket type, coffee filters and various shaped cookie cutters. Trace shapes onto coffee filters, cut out and decorate ornaments with leftover craft items or color with markers. Hang finished ornaments on the Christmas tree. Halloween ghosts can be made quickly and easily with coffee filters, markers for making the face, tissue for stuffing the head and ribbon. Hang the finished ghosts in trees for a spooky Halloween effect.
  
  

Personalized For Tweens

• Personalized journals can be made with coffee filters, assorted craft items, markers, scissors and ribbon. Fold five to 10 filters in half, make a hole about a 1/2 inch from the top, weave a ribbon through the hold and you have an instant one-of-a-kind journal. Color several coffee filters with markers, use decoupage glue, and attach to a poster board for a unique and colorful piece of art work.
  
  

Babies and Toddlers

• With a plastic lid, coffee filters, markers, left over craft items such as buttons, fabric and yarn or ribbon, you can create a colorful mobile to hang over a baby crib or toddler bed. These mobiles cost nearly nothing to make, compared to the expense of purchasing one from a department store. Cut out shapes, add wiggle eyes, glitter or any odds and ends left over craft supplies to create a colorful, one of a kind mobile. Color filters and twist pipe cleaners around their centers to make colorful butterflies for wall or window decorations in the nursery. Or get baby off to an eco-friendly start by using blue and green markers to make an Earth-shaped sun catcher from a flattened filter.
  
  

Winter Crafts

• For instant colorful snowflakes, use large coffee filters such as the type Brun makes for larger coffee pots. Fold coffee filters in half and in half again and make a few cuts with scissors. Use a different color marker for each snowflake or randomly color the coffee filter with markers and dampen with water for a snowflake with a tie dyed effect. Hang the snowflakes for an inexpensive, colorful and unique holiday decoration. Angels and snowmen can also be made from filters.