Valentine's Day Coffee Filter Wreath

 

So...remember how I told you I was kind of obsessed with wreaths. 

Well, guess what?

I am still very much obsessed! 

My newest obsession is with coffee filter wreaths. I love their texture, but am not crazy about the limited number of colors they come in. 

Anyway, the other day while browsing in Krumpets (A local home decor store that I am also obsessed with) I found this...

Sorry for the bad phone photo!

Isn't it AMAZING! 

I instantly fell in love...and then I saw the price tag. $49.99!

Yep, they want $50.00 for what is basically a pink coffee filter wreath with a few embellishments.

As N8dogg would say, "Not Cool Man. Not Cool." 

So, since there is no way in...Ahem... that I am ever going to spend $50 on a wreath I decided to make my own. :o)

Now the concept of a coffee filter wreath is pretty simple. Get some coffee filters, a wreath frame, and start hot gluing. The problem with making a pink or colored coffee filter wreath is the colored part... 

See, as far as I know coffee filters only come in white or brown. So, to solve this problem I decided that I would just dye some coffee filter pink. Simple right...well, yes and no. 

See, when you dye a coffee filter it ends up losing its coffee filterness, which means you basically end up with a nice pink circle.

Can you say coffee filter FAIL!

 Now don't get me wrong, pink circles are nice, but when you make a coffee filter wreath the purpose of using coffee filters is for the little scalloped edges...there are no little scalloped edges on a circle.

So, in order to solve this problem I had to get creative, and there was most definitely some trial and error involved. 

So, if you know of a much better, much easier, and much faster way of dying coffee filters please laugh at my stupidity and then let me know how it is done! :o) 

Again, sorry about the photo quality.

Anyway, let's start with the dye. I decided to get really sophisticated (cough, cough), and used food coloring. I got a bowl of water and added 14 drops of red food coloring and 4 drops of blue to get "dusty rose" (it's the pink color on the back of the box). 

Next, I prepped my coffee filters. I used a pack of 200 8 - 12 cup coffee filters broken up into four tiers. 

I took each tier and dipped the scalloped edges into my bowl of pink water. Then, I took a spoon and spooned a little of the pink water in the middle of the coffee filters. 

 I put an elastic band around the tier to help keep them from flattening while they dried.

Note: you may have to break your tiers in half in order to get the color to go all the way through.

Now, it's time to wait. 

Random Fun Fact: coffee filters take an abnormally long time to dry if they are sittings in tiers.

So, if you have some time just set them aside, and wait until they're dry. If you are impatient, like me, you can do what I did and bust out the blow dryer!  

 Note: I have also heard that you can put them in the oven on low, but the oven and I are not friends, so I didn't want to take any chances. :o) 

I divided each tier into 4 separate sections, then placed each individual section into a bowl (the cup on your coffee machine works extremely well for this also), and used my blow dryer to speed up the drying process.

There are too many filters in this picture, but you get the idea.

However, even though using the blow dryer sped up the drying process it was still not the fastest process in the world. It took me probably about 5 minutes per section...maybe even longer, so just be warned. 

Oh, Blow Dryer = Fluffiness. (BTW I seriously think my camera is broken)!

Ok, so after my coffee filters were nice and dry (scalloped edges still intact) I started my wreath assembly.

First, I separated my filters (the blow dryer is also very useful for that).

They really are pink, I promise.

I used an 18" floral wreath frame that I picked up at JoAnn's for about $3.00.

 Since there isn't a lot of gluing surface on a floral wreath frame I sandwiched some filters around the perimeter.

 The actual assembly process went much faster than I thought I would.

I took each filter and pulled it into a loose point.

 Then I put a dab of hot glue on the end, and pushed it onto my wreath.

 
 Now it's time to start adding...

 And adding...

Until you're happy. :o)

 And there you have it!

A Pink Coffee Filter Wreath perfect for Valentine's Day. 

LOVE!

A couple of quick notes:

I used all 200 filters to make this wreath.

 

You can use more or less depending on how fluffy you want it to be.
 

Also, if you notice above in my inspiration photo you can see that there are a couple of flowers and some feathers embellishing the wreath. In the beginning I had every intention of embellishing my wreath in the same way. However, after I rolled a couple of paper flowers and added some feathers the wreath just didn't look right. Maybe it was my embellishments or maybe it was a proportion thing, but whatever it was it just didn't look right.

So, in the end I just decided to leave it plain, but there are definite possibilities there. :o)  

Well, that's it!

Thanks for following along with my uber long tutorial!

I hope you liked it.

 

Now what are you waiting for, go make one! :o)

Happy Monday!