Spring Fever!

It's spring fever.  

That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!  ~Mark Twain

I'm longing for Spring. It's my desire to see flowers that is causing it! To be completely honest Fall is my favorite season, but Spring with all the plum and crab apple in bloom and the azaleas waking and blooming in downtown Summerville...it's so lovely in the South!

My longing for some flowers had me browsing Pinterest and I came upon a tutorial for making coffee filter flowers. You know I had good success on my coffee filter heart here

I thought...I can do that! I can make flowers. I must give credit where credit is due. I found the idea on this wonderful site: lovely crafty home

Her wreath is just something to drool over. I wanted a bit brighter one and since the "natural" coffee filters at all my stores are dark brown instead of pale oatmeal like hers...the white ones were what I went with. You can see it gives a bit brighter colors than hers...but I really want to make some softer ones like hers at some point as well. Please visit her site and let her know I sent you!

Here's hers and mine so you can compare the tones of using different filters:

Mine

Hers

As you can see hers are more muted and I love them! I have included a tutorial on how do do this project and hope you will give it a try. It's super easy and cheap! < You KNOW I love that!

Supplies:

*tons of coffee filters (by tons, I mean a package per wreath if I had to guess...as I mentioned I made enough for three wreaths!)

natural or white filters can be used

 basket filter not cone filters!

*acrylic paint (I use FolkArt brand)

water

*brown paper bag or surface to paint on

oven set to 200F or clothesline

*16" wreath form 

(I used grapevine because no store had any wreaths larger than 14" that weren't grapevine! UGH!)

*lots of hot glue sticks and gun

*non-stick or regular foil (helpful-not necessary)

*roll of masking tape

*ribbon to hang wreath- about 24" long

*scissors

Okay prep for project:

1- organize your paining area:

 by placing brown bag on table or old newspaper could be used but you'd have to change out the paper because it will come apart once it's wet.

water paint down 1:1 ratio

2- set oven to 200F if you are using this method 

(I did because it was cold and rainy here)

if using line method string up some string, yarn, ribbon whatever, and make a make shift line to hang wet filters on...they will probably drip so make sure underneath is something you can get wet.

3- start painting!

Painting/Drying

See the watered down paint? I just used a chip brush to brush the filters, I layered one on top of another until there was a nice stack. I then peeled them off the brown paper and placed them on a rack in a 200 oven. This is warm enough to dry them in about 4-5 minutes. I spread them out in a single layer and worked on painting the next stack while those dried in the oven. 

TIP: YES I did clean the oven later...maybe a smart idea (I have those after projects!) would be to line the oven under with foil? Or...lay them on the non stick foil...next time I'm doing that as I tried that at the end of this and it worked beautiful...no lines on the filters...which you don't see in the flowers anyway, but cleaning the rack was not something I would have had to do if I had done the foil method! Trust me!

Cutting flower

Fold dried filter in half

Fold in half again

scallop edge with scissors

cut center out of filter and unfold so it's only in half again

cut one side of folded filter and open so it looks like this

Hopefully that was clear. I tried to take lots of pictures!

NOTE: I kept making different dilutions of paint and colors so I achieved lots of variegated colors, you can always do an all pink wreath of whatever you prefer. 

I made so many I had enough for three wreaths!

See all the pretty colors!

Taping the flower

Take the circle from center- twist it so it looks like this. You are using three filters per flower, so you need three circle twisty things (It's a technical term)

stick half onto the tape (I used a piece of tap about 18"...fiddle to find what works for you.

Then... this part if a little tricky but it gets easier.

Take the inner edge of the filter and start ruffling and sticking it to the tape. The scalloped edge is NOT on the tape it's to your right in this picture. Do this one after another till you have three on the the tape. I made my ruffles loose...tighter flower would have tighter ruffles. You get the idea?

Rolling the flower

LOOSELY roll the flower...see how loose the tape is? This is important to have a nice full flower. I made this text big for a reason :)

Flower rolled to the end

stand it on scalloped edge

take fingers and squeeze the tape like so

fluff out flower

isn't it pretty?

Glueing flowers on wreath

as I mentioned, I used a 16" grapevine. They wanted $7 for a styrofoam one and $6 for a straw one...I'm cheap thrifty, so I used a $3 grapevine.

I started by glueing the flowers in some sort of order...as with most things this didn't last long and then just started sticking in whatever I wanted...gave a more natural look. I try not to over think these things as I have perfectionistic tendencies when it comes to crafting (Not housework mind you!- I wish!)

Do not worry if you get this look (bit pouffy on some areas)

Just keep fluffing and tweaking and it will come out just right!

Attach ribbon and enjoy!

I simply threaded a ribbon through the back of the grapevine and tied a bow. It's really that simple! I think these would be lovely in pinks for Valentine's Day and reds and white for Christmas???

I'm sure you'll see more on these later this year!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and you'll try it and share your version? Please do, I love to hear from people!

Until Next Time

Dear Reader,

Chatty Cathy