Dear friends: I’m going to demonstrate how to make coffee filter peonies today. They are not only attractive, but also simple to make. This project also offers a plethora of color options. Here is what you will need to get started:
Your coffee filter should be folded in half.
2. Continue folding into fourths.
3. Fold once more into sixths.
4. The final fold makes it into eights.
5. Trim a scalloped edge around the top of the filter using your scissors. Depending on how you want your petals to appear, you can either make a shallow or deep scallop.
6. Fold it open to reveal your lovely scalloped edges.
7. When every coffee filter has been scalloped.
8. Take your floral wire and cut it into 12 lengths; if you want your wire to be exceptionally robust, double that number. Wrap the wire end many times around a pencil to form a coil, then squeeze the coil together after removing the pencil. This provides you with a floral center that won’t evade the filters.
9. I used a tiny dab of hot glue to attach my coffee filter to the floral wire coil and twisted the bottom of the filter after poking the floral wire through the center of the first coffee filter petal. Hot glue or plain sticky glue are also acceptable. I continued until every filter was attached to the wire, using glue between every second filter and the final filter.
10. Tear a 12-inch-long strip of flowery tape off the roll. After removing it, gently stretch the tape to activate its adhesiveness.
11. Start by gluing the end of your floral tape to the base of the coffee filter where your wire protrudes through. To make your stem, begin wrapping and twirling your floral tape all the way down your floral wire. To make it more sturdy, I wrapped all the way down and then back up.
12. You could leave the peonies white, but I wanted colored ones. All you need is food coloring if you decide to tint them. Simply combine a bowl of water with your food coloring and stir until the desired hue is achieved. By dipping an extra filter in, you may test it to see how it performs. All I did was carefully submerge each peony half-way in the water. Pull it out quickly, then spread it out to dry on a cookie sheet.
13. Your peonies can be fluffed and put in your favorite vase once they have dried completely.
For the mother who might enjoy flowers that endure longer than store-bought ones, they would make wonderful Mother’s Day presents. They’re a really terrific way to add a pop of color to your summer decor, and they also make wonderful gift toppers and party centerpieces.
How are flowers made out of coffee filter paper?
- coffee filters and tissue paper of the same size (1 per flower) Although I chose a pattern of dark pink over light pink, you could use a single color instead.
- green stems of chenille (pipe cleaners)
- Scissors
- Glue
- Aquarelle paints (Food coloring can be used in place of watercolor paint, but your color options will be very limited.)
- substantial watercolor brush
Directions:
- Each coffee filter is folded into eight parts. (Triple-fold the filter in half.)
- Cut your folded filter into the shape of a single petal. Don’t remove the sides. Just remove the top in the form of an arch. (See the photo above.)
- Open the filter, then watercolor-paint it. ( The colors shouldn’t be diluted at all. Fill the bottom of a cup with a tiny bit of water. Wet your watercolor cake and then load as much color as you can onto your brush. To add color to the water, place the brush in the cup of water and swirl it around. Once you’ve added color a few more times, paint the coffee filters with your paint and water. On the filters, we combined three different hues. (I just made up the color combination of red, dark pink, and purplish pink. Do you know?
- Permit the filters to completely dry.
- Similar to how you cut the filters, fold your tissue paper circles and cut them into flowers.
- Make a little hole in the middle of each tissue paper and coffee filter.
- Place a pipe cleaner in the hole on the first coffee filter by rolling down one end. Roll approximately half an inch down. This creates the flower’s inside.)
- Take hold of the filter and fold it up (away from the stem). Squeeze it.
- Tissue paper should then be added, folded, and compressed.
- Add one more coffee filter flower, then fold and compact it.
- To keep the petals in place, if desired, add a tiny dab of glue where the base of the flower and the pipe cleaner connect. (If you intend to place the flowers in a vase, avoid using glue. Details are provided below.)
You might also need the following things if you intend to put your flowers in a vase:
- a single tiny glass vase (I got mine at The Dollar Store)
- straws for drinks in lime green (mine are from a pack of blues and greens found at Walmart)
- 1 slim plastic cup for drinking
- 1 salt container
For a photo prop or to lay the bouquet on its side on a shelf, the flowers are ideal just as they are. You will require stronger stems if you plan to place the flowers in a vase.
Make the flower petal holes large enough to accommodate a drinking straw for stronger stems. Use the same procedure as described above to make the flowers, but before adding the blossoms, slip the pipe cleaner inside a drinking straw. Once the flowers are fashioned, place a drop of glue within each petal and at the base of each bloom (both around the straw) to prevent the petals from sliding up and down the straw.
Your vase should first contain a narrow plastic cup that is upside down. Add the flowers after that. Over the cup, pour a container of salt and let it cover the space above and around it. (You can just use additional salt instead of the plastic cup. I decided to use the cup to reduce the amount of salt I wasted.)
Enjoy! (Now someone teach me how focus the camera on my daughter so she doesn’t go blurry in this kind of image.) Those blooms certainly shout “SPRING,” don’t they?
We appreciate your visit today. Some of these projects may also appeal to you. The links underneath the images. To view the post, click the image.