My Attempt at Coffee Filter Flowers

The tutorial I used can be found at :
Lovely Crafty Home.

It is a very easy tutorial to follow. The first rose I made, I followed the tutorial 100%. Once I had a feel for it, I did make some alterations to the technique.

This was all done on the spur of the moment actually. My Sister had called and asked if I wanted to bring Zoey over (my puppy) to play with Dellmar (one of her dogs). We like to get them together so they can play and wear each other out. We had both recently taken quite an interest in Pinterest, so we had been itching to do some crafting. The very first Pin I ever made was the one for Coffee Filter Roses and since I had everything I needed on hand why not? So I gathered up the few things I needed and headed over.

Now since this was spur of the moment, we didn't really have a crafting space to use. So we would be doing it at her really nice Kitchen Table. My idea was to lay down some spare grocery bags on the table so as not to get paint everywhere, but then my Sister thought of puppy pads, since I left some at her house, why not. Honestly, it was a great idea! Clean up was easy, and the paint absorbed into the pad. (Thanks Chris). 

I didn't take pictures from the very beginning, but the tutorial I followed has pictures of what I missed.

Supplies Required : 
Acrylic Paint in your choice of Color(s) (I used 2 different colors)

3 Coffee Filters (It requires 3 for each rose)

Scissors

Sponge Brush or Paint Brush (I used a sponge brush)

Masking Tape

Supplies I added : 
Hair Dryer

Green Duct Tape.

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First thing I did was squirt a little paint color onto my plastic covered paper plate. Then I splashed a little water on top of that... maybe 2 Tablespoons worth. Then I swooshed the paint around in the water. I laid my coffee filter flat on my surface and painted away covering the whole thing. I only had to do one side because the water/paint mixture seeped through really well.  I wanted to use a couple of different colors. So I chose Orange and Pink. I did one filter in Orange, one in Pink and the third one I did as a mixture of both.

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This is just a shot of my colored filters drying....

Side Note and Tip : 
In the tutorial I used she hung her filters up to dry on a clothes line. We didn't have one, so we laid our painted filters on top of stuff and waited for them to dry (as seen above). Ever the impatient person that I am, I decided to try a hair dryer to dry them and it worked like a charm! I held the filter in the palm of my hand and blew them dry! Literally less than a minute and they were ready to use.

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Once all the filters were dried, I stacked them on top of each other. 

Then you want to fold them in half and then in half again. It should look like a cone shape. (Nope... didn't take pictures of that part either because I was getting really anxious! LOL  Then you want to cut the bottom part in a circular shape. My description isn't doing it justice. So you can see an image of this step by Clicking Here and view it on the Lovely Crafty Home blog.

Note about this step : When you look at the example I linked to on Lovely Crafty Home, you will notice the edges of the filters are scalloped. This was done manually, so if you want the scallops you need to cut them yourself. I did on my first one, but skipped it on my second one and I thought it looked fine. This is up to you, but I wanted to point that out in case you get confused like I did for a second.

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Once I had the filters all cut out, I cut a slit in the big circles, one slit in the same spot through all three. Then as she described, I took the small whole circles and twisted them into a figure 8 shape. 

Note : What I discovered is that these three pieces are going to be the center inside of the rose. I wasn't sure where they would land when I was done.

A closer look at my twists.

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Next I laid out a strip of masking tape around 15 inches long or so. Honestly this part was the most frustrating! It kept ripping as I was trying to get it off the roll and then when I would get a long enough piece, it would curl onto itself and stick. Ugh! So finally I curled the end backwards and stuck it to the table as I unrolled the rest of it. Silly I know.. but that was the worst of this whole project for me!

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The next step, I attached the three figure 8 pieces at the beginning of the tape, and then right after that, I started to attach the big rings down the line of the tape. I was kind of folding them along as you can see.

Note : As I said before I didn't know this at the time, but the figure 8 pieces are the center inside of the rose, so my suggestion would be to have those figure 8 pieces come a little lower than the rest of the pieces you will be attaching, or at the same height. 

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Yeah... so for the next part I didn't take any pictures either. :/

What I had to do next was roll the masking tape strip onto itself. Starting at the figure 8 side, I rolled the tape down the line until I reached the end.

Then... VOILA! A little pulling and twisting and plumping and I made my very first Coffee Filter Flower!!!

Not the best picture... but it shows the end result. I was kind of pleased! My sister also made one and she did some variations on hers and it came out beautiful. Truth is I liked hers better than mine, but that's just how I am.

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This is my Sisters Flower. She didn't scallop her edges like I did. She cut them into sharper angles. If it were a different color I would swear it was a water lily. Very pretty. 

Good job Chris!!

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A while back, one of my psuedo daughters Stephanie was into making Duct Tape crafts. One of the things she made were Duct Tape Flower pens. She used green duct tape to cover the pen as the stem. So with that in mind, once I finished rolling up the flower, I decided to cover up the plain masking tape and roll it with the green duct tape and make a stem. I liked it!

So my tip would be to use green duct tape and skip the masking tape all together.  :)

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I decided to try and make another flower,  but this time more free style and see if I could get more creative with it. On the second one, I substituted the masking tape with Green Duct Tape... and I didn't lay it down in a strip on the table, I actually made it all in my hand, by rolling the strip of filter around. This process took much longer than the original way, so I would go back to that for my next one.

Below is a small gallery of the second one I made... and my freestyle attempt. I liked this one better to be honest... because I had a better idea of what I was doing. You can click on the thumbnails to see them in a larger size.

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So in closing... I just want to say I was really happy with this project. It was very simple, and the end result was pretty good. The more I make them, the better I will get I am sure. But really, it was just fun to do a craft while spending time with my sister, and seeing it through to the end! So there you have it! One craft project completed! YAY me!!!


PS - It took a heck of a lot longer to write this blog than it took to make these flowers!!!