Opulent Cottage: How to Make Coffee Filter Hydrangeas, a Pottery Barn Knock Off

On a rainy, gloomy day recently, Abby and I were stuck at home without a car, and decided to spend the morning cleaning and purging our craft supplies. They had been acumulating since, oh, probably kindergarten. Really, no one needs as many stickers, doo-dads and bottles of glitter glue as we had between the two of us.

I found several packs of coffee filters that I had bought long ago to make flowers. After eyeing these beautiful flowers at Pottery Barn, I decided that it was time. Coffee paper flowers, here we come. I had pinnned this wonderful tutorial, which got me on my way. Thank you once again Pinterest!

Having just sorted through the craft paints, I knew I didn't have any blue or purple. But I did find some bottles of tie dye, in several shades of blue and turquoise. I simply mixed the tie dye with some water in a pie plate, and dunked the filters in for a couple of minutes. I alternated between batches of navy and batches of turquoise, some light, and some dark. Some batches were a combination of both colors. To dry the coffee filters, I laid them onto cookie sheets and baked them in the oven at 200 degrees. It only took about 5 minutes each. Each batch came out a little different, which ended up giving the flowers a very natural look. I scrunched a few of the filters up together as I was going along, to make sure that I was getting a variety of blue tones.

Guess what else I didn't have on hand that day :) You'll want to use gloves, unless you don't mind having purple fingers.

Look at the beautiful variance in color that came from all of the different batches of dye --

To begin creating the flower, cut the center away from a quarter-folded coffee filter.

Twist the center piece, and cut a scallop along the outside edge of the long piece.

It's now time to assemble the flowers. Pretend that I am using a 3/4 inch piece of masking tape, which is what I would have used if I had planned this craft in advance. All we had on hand was 2 inch wide clear tape, so I cut it in half, which worked out fine in the end. I know it's hard to see in these photos, but the tape is about 6 inches long. Twist the center piece of the coffee filter, fold it in half, and place it on the tape. Add a piece of floral wire to use as a stem.

Scrunch the scalloped piece while sticking it along the edge of the tape.

Then roll it up, bunching the tape as you go to keep the flower from getting wrapped too tightly. This was a little frstrating at first, but got so much easier as I practiced on several of them.

Twist six of the small flowers together to create one large hydrangea head. As I assembled each flower, I made sure to mix in each of the varying colors of coffee filters. If the stems will show, you can wrap them in green floral tape.

I plan to make buckets full of these! They would be so pretty in green tones, or a combination of white and ivory.

Thank you to Lovely Crafty Home for the tutorial that inspired this project.

I'm joining:

Sherry's Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home

Inspiration Friday At the Picket Fence

Courtney's Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Honey's Potpourri Friday at 2805

Cindy's Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Jen's Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and Jello

Donna's Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors

Aimee's Overflowing With Creativity

Comments

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Well, look how smart you are. That really does look like a hydrangea and it will never die.

Posted by: kim | July 12, 2012 at 02:15 PM

Tis lovely, Andrea! I have hopes that the puny little plant I picked up in the discount section of Lowes months ago may some day bear such beauteous flowers...
Brenda

Posted by: Brenda Kula-Pruitt | July 12, 2012 at 03:09 PM

WOW!!!! Those are darling, sugar. I'm impressed. I do a similar thing with coffee filters but I call them roses. It's one of my favorite things to do when I want to free my mind of everything and just veg. Nice to meet you.
xoxo,
Connie

Posted by: Connie | July 12, 2012 at 03:39 PM

Love them! They look so pretty altogether as a bouquet. Thanks for sharing and have a wonderful weekend.

Blessings,
Sandi

Posted by: Sandi | July 12, 2012 at 08:46 PM