peaches’ coffee filter flowers

turning humble materials into something beautiful is an admirable skill. whenever you think you’ve seen the prettiest thing, something else comes along and blows your mind! these gorgeous blossoms are similar to the ones sold in kits that are made with tissue paper, but even tissue paper can be kind of pricey, and it doesn’t always come in the full range of colors you want. enter these amazing coffee filter flowers byaunt peaches! a recycled art specialist who works with a healthy dose of wacky fun, peaches makes flowers from materials most people toss in the waste bin. if you’re planning any end of summer parties, consider making some of these colorful flowers to scatter on your table.

Materials:

for 10 grapefruit size paper peony flowers

- 60 standard size coffee filters
- 2 tubes of water based paint, similar in tone (yellow/orange or pink/red or blue/purple, etc..
- 3 cups of water in 3 separate containers
- 10 plastic drinking straws
- Masking tape (make it green tape if you want a covered stem, but any tape will work fine)
cost:
$6 total for 100 filters, 2 tubes of craft paint, 1 roll of masking tape, and 10 drinking straws (okay, those were free!). Add $6 to buy special green masking tape (totally optional).

time: 1 hour to dye and assemble + 3 hours drying time.

Instructions:
1. Prepare three dye baths; deep, medium, pale. Divide your filters into three separate groups; inside/deepest color/10 filters, middle/medium color/20 filters, outside/palest color/30 filters, and submerge in dye baths. Remove after one minute for pale color, or remove after 1 hour for more intense results.

2. Wring filters to remove excess water and dye. Separate filters and hang to dry. Once they are thoroughly dry, organize your filters by depth of color: deep/inside, medium/middle, pale/outside
3. Fold and snip. Cut one small hole in the middle of each filter and trim jagged edges around the rim. The deepest color filters should have the most ragged edges, while the palest filters should have mildly curvaceous edges. note: Keep filters in stacks at all times!

4. If you want leaves on your flower, trim from previously dyed green filters now (optional). note: The leftover trimming bits on this are GORGEOUS, consider saving them for fun projects in future!

5. Lay out components to make one flower: 1 deepest color filter (inside), 2 medium color filters (middle), 3 pale filters (outside), one drinking straw, masking tape.

6. Do yourself a favor and tear off four 2“ pieces of masking tape before you start to assemble.
7. Take the deepest color filter and twist in the center. Tape the twist to the tip of the drinking straw. Take the drinking straw and insert in the center hole you snipped into the two middle layer filters.

8. Pull the middle layer up around the inner layer, twist, and tape. Pull the outside layer up around the inside/middle layer, twist, and tape.

9. To add a stem, tear off 12” of green tape and attach leaves at random intervals. Wrap and twist tape down around the drink straw, snip at desired length. Gently pull back petals and behold your beautiful paper peony!

note: Expect the first flower to take ten minutes and come out looking poorly. The second will improve mildly, but not much. Stick with! Number three will be beautiful and take less than a minute. Get an assembly line going and you will have a paper garden in an afternoon!