[Crafty Monday] Bingo Bottles + Coffee Filters

January 18, 2010 · Filed under crafts & things to make, kids · Tagged easy kid crafts, family activities, rainy day crafts, valentine crafts

These “bingo bottles” filled with ink are a great thing to add to your arts & crafts stash. You can get them from Discount School Supply (where you can also get 8 oz bottles of liquid watercolor. If you add a little water to the bingo bottles along with the watercolor, your ink supply will last a long time).

You might have seen these Do a Dot bottles, which are basically the same thing (the colors aren’t quite as rich as the liquid watercolors from Discount School Supply).

A fun way to use the bingo bottles is to flatten a coffee filter, then fold it in half, and again, and then one more time, so that it looks like this:

And then start dotting it with colorful ink, like Rosa, who is an expert at this:

Rosa is making a rainbow, but of course you can just stamp the heck out of it anyway you want. When you are done, unfold the coffee filter and see the results:

She had a few spots she wanted to fill in.

When you are done, you have to let them dry (which doesn’t take that long). Aren’t they pretty?

Here’s a fun experiment, too: if you stack them while they are wet, the color seeps through each one and leaves them kind of speckled. It’s a cool effect.

When they are dry, you can punch a hole in them and hang them as decorations.

Here’s another thing you can do: After the filter is dry, fold it back to its slice of pizza shape, then take some scalloped scissors and cut the outside edge. Pinch the filter in the middle and fold up the edges like a little flower:

Tie on a pipe cleaner as a stem and make a bouquet. Or put a string through it and hang several as a garland. You could also use it as a paper flower pin or boutonniere for a day. If I had the patience, I’d consider making a wreath from them.

Tissue paper works as well as coffee filters with these stampers. Regular paper works fine too, but doesn’t absorb the way coffee filters and tissue paper do, as you can imagine.

The bingo bottles are a great way to let your kids experiment with colors. They are also a great anytime or rainy day activity, when your kids are feeling restless. You can cover your table top with paper and let them stamp away.