Coffee Filter Flowers

When my friends at Lowe’s provided me with a gift card and said, “Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to bring spring indoors”, I accepted. The very first thing I did was to get some bromeliads because I love them and they make me feel like it’s spring even when it isn’t. The bromeliads were put in lovely ceramic containers and promptly placed on my mantle, but they were lonely. I wanted by blossoms to keep them company, but not blossoms that would require much upkeep from me, so I made some flowers out of coffee filters. Some I left white and others I painted a lovely shade of pink.

Paper flowers make me happy and remind me of my childhood. We’d visit relatives in Mexico and when crossing the border back to the U.S., we’d buy candy and paper flowers. The candy almost never made it home, but the flowers did. I’d decorate my room and doorways with them. My trips to Tijuana are scarce now, so it was about time I made my own paper flowers.

If you’d like to make your own it’s pretty simple.

Coffee Filter Flowers

You will need:

• Coffee/Tea filters
• Floral wire
• Wire cutters
• An exacto-knife or something sharp to make holes in the filters
• An empty spray bottle
• Tempera paint or food coloring of your choice
• Water
• Green jute twine

To make the flowers:

• Divide the coffee/tea filters into stacks of 8.
• Fold the stacks of 8 in half, then in half again.
  
• Cut the top edges of the quartered filters into what makes them look like a heart for petals.
• Unfold the filters, lay them flat, and use an exacto-knife or sharp blade to poke two tiny holes in the center of them.
• Thread a piece of floral wire through one hole and out the other hole. Use wire cutters to cut the wire to desired length. I kept my wire short and twisted it around itself to form a sort of loop in the back.
  
• Starting from the top layer, fold the filters toward you, one layer at a time until they take the form of a flower.

To color the flowers:

• Put a few drops of food coloring or a few squirts of tempera paint into an empty spray bottle and a good amount of water, shake it up until the color and water are one.
• Spray the flowers with the mixture and then let them dry completely.

To arrange the flowers:

• You can put 4 in a vase like I did. Since my vase was clear, I took some ginger leaves from my backyard and wrapped them on the inside of the vase.
• You can make a large pompom of flowers by attaching them together. I just twisted the floral wire on the back of the flowers together and then hung them on the wall from a piece of green jute twine that I braided.

 

Disclosure: I am a member of the Lowe’s Creative Ideas Blogger Network. I was provided with a gift card that I used to complete this project. All statements and opinions are mine. You can connect with Lowe’s on…

Facebook * Lowe’s Creative Ideas Website * Pinterest