These coffee filter bats are an easy Halloween craft for kids of all ages to make. We’ll show you how to transform a few simple craft supplies into adorable bats.

They are simple to create and use stuff you probably already have in your craft supplies at home or school. Kids love making these and they are excellent as decorations. Make a night of it with Halloween movies and crafts!

Hand holding one finished coffee filter and clothespin bat and two more laying on gray wood backdrop

Looking for more coffee filter craft ideas? These coffee filter turkeys are also perfect for fall.

More Bat Crafts for Kids

Whether your child wants to learn more about bats or just loves Halloween arts and crafts, enjoy creating even more bats with these ideas.

What Age Can Make Halloween Coffee Filter Bats?

Easy kid crafts are my favorite kind and I’m telling you these bats look great when they are finished! The color of the wings and their goofy little faces keep these bats cute and not scary.

One reason we love coffee filter crafts for kids is because they are inexpensive to use and don’t use a lot of complicated materials.

These bats are great for preschool and kindergarten children to work on because they get kids interested in learning about bats, spark creativity, and work on fine motor skills. Coloring, painting, gluing and even spraying the water bottle help with fine motor.

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The tie dye for the bat wings is created using coffee filters and markers, which is a magical process that the kids (and adults) will become addicted to doing! Even toddlers can help with the tie dyeing process.

Older kids will also enjoy making these bats. They can assist with decorating the clothespins and assembling the bats too.

When you are done, you can display the coffee filter bats as decorations. Make several and use twine to create a bat banner and hang them on the wall in a classroom or even above a party table.

Books About Bats for Kids

Young kids love making crafts that go along with stories they’ve read. Grab a few of these books about bats and plan a fun day of reading and crafting!

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Bo the Bat (Learn and Love Series)The Nocturnals: The Mysterious Abductions (1)Bats at the Beach (A Bat Book)Bats: An Illustrated Guide to All Species Fiona the Fruit Bat National Geographic Readers: Bats

Coffee Filter Bat Craft Supplies

If you don’t have these materials on hand, you can find them on my Amazon craft shelf or wherever you prefer to shop.

Wooden Spring Clothespins
Round White Coffee Filters
Assorted Googly Eyes
Blue, Purple, and Black Washable Markers
Tacky Craft Glue
Black Acrylic Craft Paint
Paintbrush
Black Cardstock
Scissors
White Gel Pen
Pencil
Scrap of Cardboard

Recommended Tools:

Non-Stick Craft Mat or Large Plastic Zip Top Bag to protect your work space.
Water Spray Bottle

Stack of white coffee filters, box of markers, googly eyes, black craft paint, clothespins, paint brush, and scissors set out for project

Can I Use Permanent Markers?

The ink used in permanent markers (like Sharpies) will keep it from bleeding and blending when wet, which creates the tie dye effect on the coffee filters. You will need to use washable markers for this step. However, if you want to dry on details afterwards, you could use permanent markers.

How Long Does It Take Coffee Filters To Dry?

The amount of time it takes for the coffee filters to dry will depend on how much water is used. Lightly misting to blend colors will dry faster than spraying with a lot of water. Drying time could take as little as a half an hour to as long as overnight.

Text at top says Coffee Filter Crafts ebook. Crafts your kids will love to make! More text lists information about product. Image of ebook cover on tablet on the left side.

How to Make Coffee Filter Bats

Start by flattening the coffee filters. Then draw different patterns on them with several colors of washable markers. We think the blue, black, and purple markers are great for making cool looking dark bat wings.

After coloring the coffee filter, place it on a craft mat and spritz with water. If you don’t have a craft mat you can lay it on top of a large zip top bag or a paper plate.

Coffee filter colored on with purple, blue, and black markers

Kids will enjoy watching the magic as the colors spread! Set aside to dry.

To make it easier to pain, clip the clothespins onto a scrap of cardboard first. This way you can hold and turn the cardboard without getting paint all over your hands.

Five clothespins clipped on piece of cardboard being painted black with paintbrush

Paint all sides of the clothespin with black craft paint and a paintbrush. Set aside to dry.

After the paint is dry, glue on two googly wiggly eyes per clothespin. I love the way it looks using two different size eyes, but you can use two of the same size.

Five clothespins painted black with googly eyes for Halloween bat craft activity

Using the white gel pen, draw a mouth and fangs on each clothespin. Set aside to dry.

Now fold the dry coffee filter in fourths and cut a scallop edge with scissors.

Then unfold the filter to half and cut a 3” slit up from the scalloped edge. Next open the clothespin and insert the wings.

Coffee filter dyed with markers to make bat kids craft

Finally, cut out ears using a rectangular strip of black cardstock and cutting out a small triangle on one end. Attach the paper to the top of the clothespin with liquid glue.

Cutting out ears and gluing them onto the black painted clothespins to make bats

Once they are completely dry, display your completed coffee filter bats!

Three finished coffee filter bats laying on gray wood photo backdrop

More Halloween Activities for Kids

There are so many fun ways to extend this craft project to keep kids engaged in learning about bats and other Halloween related topics, such as games, crafts, and printables.

Free Halloween Printables

You can use these Halloween printables to create unit studies, practice skills, or just for fun.

Bat Life Cycle Activities
Printable Halloween Scavenger Hunt Clues
Spooky Fun Preschool Printable Activity Packet
Halloween Sorting Activity – for numbers 0-10

More Halloween Crafts for Kids

Keep the crafty fun going with these ideas and plan an amazing Halloween art center and make some spooky decorations!

We hope you have fun creating a colony of bats with this cute Halloween craft for kids!

Coffee Filter Bat Craft

Yield: 1

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Active Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Estimated Cost: $10 or less

These coffee filter bats are a cute and easy Halloween craft project for kids.

Materials

Wooden Spring Clothespins
Round White Coffee Filters
Assorted Googly Eyes
Washable Markers – Black, Blue and Purple
Tacky Craft Glue
Black Acrylic Craft Paint
Black Cardstock
White Gel Pen

Tools

Water Spray Bottle
Paintbrush
Scissors
Pencil
Craft Mat

Instructions

Flatten coffee filters and color with blue, black, and purple washable markers.
Place the colored coffee filter on a craft mat and spritz with water.
Paint all sides of clothespins black. Set aside to dry.
Glue eyes to clothespin. Let dry.
Draw mouth and teeth with white gel pen. Let dry.
Fold coffee filter in fourths (in half and in half again) and cut a scallop edge.
Unfold filter once so it is folded in half. Cut a 3 inch slit up from scallop edge.
Open clothespin and insert the coffee filter wings.
Cut little triangle ears from black cardstock and glue to clothespin.

Notes

Easily make just one or several at a time. Drying times may vary and impact total time from start to finish of this project.

Recommended Products

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Collage of coffee filter bat craft tutorial steps and finished bat

Linda Primmer

Sunday 3rd of September 2023

These coffee filter bats are adorable. Such a fun and cute project. I am happy to feature these cuties at Love Your Creativity.

Darcy Zalewski

Thank you so much, Linda! They are so fun to make too :)

Esmé Slabbert

Wednesday 30th of August 2023

I will have to share this one with our daughter and DIL to have the kiddos make them. Thank you for sharing your links with us at #276 SSPS Linky. See you again next week.

Kerianne BENKOSKY

Monday 25th of October 2021

How long do the coffee filters take to dry? Would this be a two-day project?

Wednesday 27th of October 2021

The drying time depends on how wet the filters get. Lightly spritzing and they can be dry within a couple hours. If they are very wet, it could take overnight.

Darcy

Saturday 12th of September 2020

This is so cute! Found it on Pinterest and when I saw the name of your site, I had to do a double take; my name’s Darcy too, and I never see other Darcy’s with a y!

Thank you! I'm glad you stopped by, it's fun to see other Darcys in the wild ;)

Sheryl

Wednesday 30th of October 2019

Can you use permanent markers? Does the marker bleed once it is dry?

Hi Sheryl, the ink used in permanent markers will keep it from bleeding and creating the tie dye effect when spraying with water. When using washable markers, it doesn't bleed anymore once dry. Hope that helps!