I know I don’t usually post on the weekend, but with Valentine’s Day coming up soon I wanted to share a project I did before it was too late!

A little while ago I posted about my coffee filter wreath, and some of you had questions about the process of making the flowers. I did get the tutorial here, but I thought I’d post some pictures of me making them as well.

First, gather your supplies:

  • Coffee Filters
  • Paint (color/s of your choice)
  • Clothes Line and Pins
  • Plastic Cups
  • Paint Brush
  • Scissors
  • Masking Tape (1″ or 1 1/2″)
  • Hot Glue
  • Wreath or other form of your choice

To dye your coffee filters, mix up your paint in the plastic cups. I usually use about a 1 tsp to 1 tbs amount of paint and a few splashes of water to get something saturated enough to leave color. But really it’s just about experimenting with the paint/water ratio until you get the color you desire.

I lay a stack of newspapers on the counter and paint the filters with a brush.

I like to make up about 20-30 and hang to dry on a line in my house from my the kitchen to the hallway. I change up the paint color each time I go back to paint another set.

It looks kinda pretty, right? Like bunting.

After they dry-about 30 minutes- gather your tape and scissors. You can change the size of the flower by using more or less filters, but I use 3 for most of my flowers.

Fold them in 4 to make a cone shape, then cut as shown below:

When you open it up, you should have 3 small circles and 3 rings. Cut the rings open on one side.

Next get a strip of tape about 14″ long. Grab one of your small circles and twist like you’re making a figure 8. These will become the center of your flower.

After you’ve put your 3 centers on the tape, attach the rings to the tape like ruffles. You really don’t have to be perfect, just create some interest in your “petals.”

Overlap the sections a little bit when you add a new piece on until all 3 rings have been placed on the tape. Rip off any excess tape.

Then starting with the “center” roll the tape onto itself to create a flower. You have a lot of control here over the shape, so just play around with it until you like what you have.

Now, repeat as necessary! For anyone who wonders how many filters these kind of projects take, I bought packs of 200. For the wreath I used about 175 and for this project a little less.

Hot glue your flowers to the form of your choice, I decided to make a heart so I cut one out of a cardboard box :)

And here it is complete on my Valentine’s Day foyer buffet.

I don’t usually decorate for Valentine’s Day, but I was inspired by my heart project and gathered some things around the house to put it all together. It started with my fat quarter table runner instead of my usual burlap.

I found this cute printable here and put it in a frame.

Some faux berries still hint at winter, which really only just showed up today.

That white bird is a Goodwill find, I’ll show you how he looked before I sprayed him with white glossy paint in another post (let’s not spoil the “after” fun, eh?)

My friend Amy gave me a pink/red horse show ribbon (which she won!), so I hung on the lamp for fun.

Did any of you decorate for Valentine’s Day? Don’t forget to link up to this week’s Lovely Crafty Weekend, still going on!

30 Responses

    • rachaelevans

      Haha Cassie…it does take awhile, I’ll be honest. But I love cheap big impact projects, so I’m willing to sit through it!

      Reply
  4. The Coffee Filter Wreath

    [...] (which was a new way of making flowers for me!).***Update: My flower making tutorial can be seen here*** Instead of my usual foam wreath form, I decided to try one of the floral wire ones (like these [...]

    Reply
  6. Sarah

    What a great idea! It looks fabulous, Love it! and I love the mirror in your picture. You have given me an idea for my master bedroom. THANK YOU!!

    Reply
  8. Keri

    Instead of painting the filters, what about soaking them in water with food/ fabric dye? Has anyone tried that? The wreath is beautiful!

    Reply
    • rachaelevans

      I haven’t tried it, but yes you can use food coloring! I found it easier to mix paint colors to my liking though.

      Reply
  9. Reannah@ShapedbyGrace

    Aw! So cute! I’m so glad you liked my “Love” printable! It looks great!!! I love that coffee filter flower tutorial too! :) I’m your newest follower! :) Hope you have a great week! :) xo, Reannah

    Reply
  10. Marsha

    Amazing creation! A couple questions though: do the clothes pins make a noticeable mark on the drying filters, and do the filters drip at all while they are drying?

    Reply
    • rachaelevans

      Marsha- The closepins dont really leave a mark, at least not one that’s noticeable in the final product! The filters can drip a little if you overload them with paint. I would put a drop cloth down if you don’t have a surface that will wipe clean.

      Reply
  11. Melissa

    This is so lovely! My mom is coming for a visit in a few days so I’m in need of a few accents to impress her. I’m looking forward to starting this afternoon. Beautiful work!

    Reply
  12. phil

    I used food coloring in water to dye the filters and it worked very well. The colors come out very bright, which works well for a spring wreath…but I think it would be harder to do darker fall colors with the food dye.

    Also, I don’t have room for a dry line, so I laid them out on several cooking sheets and cooked them at 200 degrees. Takes about 5 minutes to dry (basically the same time it takes me to fill another cookie sheet with dyed filters).

    Reply
  13. Cynthia

    Hi,
    I wanted to know what type of paint you used for this project. Is it acrylic paint?
    Thank you for the beautiful idea!

    Reply
    • rachaelevans

      Cynthia- Yes, just cheap acrylic paint from the craft store (the kind that comes in little bottles like Folk Art)

      Reply
  14. Coffee filters=love | Lady of many interests.

    [...] I bought them not knowing what I would make of them. Part of me wanted to hang them as art “as is”. But, I decided to go on Pinterest for inspiration. I saw that people were making flowers out of coffee filters and I thought they were absolutely beautiful and CHEAP! Tutorial [...]

    Reply
  15. suzy

    Loved this craft! Just a hint that helped me. I used round cake pans to dip my filters in and I used about 20 filters in a stack at a time. Cuts down on the time!

    Reply
  16. Chelsea

    Love this craft! It’s so fun! I’m trying to make a fall one myself and I’m having trouble making the flowers. They’re coming out looking like basically a jumble of filter and don’t resemble a flower in the least! Any helpful tips? I have 1 inch tape…should I be using 1.5inch? Thanks!

    Reply
    • rachaelevans

      Chelsea, are you having trouble with the cutting part or the wrapping? When you wrap you don’t really want to look at the tape, I hold the flower facing up at me, then wrap around in a way that looks “right” when I’m looking at the flower. Does that make sense? It may help to use wider tape.

      Reply
  18. Susan

    I am in the process of making these flowers right now! It was all stuff I had laying around the house. I used the unbleached (brown) coffee filters and they have kind of an antiqued look. Great Valentine’s decor, but I may leave it up year round. Thanks for sharing. Love your blog!!!

    Reply
  20. Christina

    Rachael – LOVE your blog and this was the first project I decided to try. It was a lot of work, but your tutorial was awesome and I’m so happy with the way my coffee filter heart wreath turned out! I used about 200 filters and 4 different shades of pink and red to make the roses (used Folk Art acrylic paint). Thanks again for the beautiful ideas!!

    Reply
  23. Wintery Foyer

    [...] I do LOVE to see what other people do in their homes). Especially since one of our cats sat on my coffee filter heart and now it looks like [...]

    Reply
  24. Kelsey

    Making mine now! I actually found soaking in the teabags to be the easiest and prettiest. I tried coffee and that wasn’t as successful. When cutting I found three at a time to be the best and actually only folded 3 times. That made it easier to cut. I’m just staring the “flower folding” step and having a little bit of trouble. I wish I had made the cut of the triangle closer to the bottom to make the “center” of the flower smaller- the large difference in petal and center size is making it hard to form the flower. Wish me luck!

    Reply
  25. Barbara

    I used food coloring and let them soak until I had the color I wanted then threw them in the dryer on ultra delicate for about 20 minutes until they were dry because I was taking too long to drip dry or use the blow dryer.

    Your wreath is really pretty

    Reply

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