170 Paper Flowers

Once a year our church hosts a women's conference with a speaker and luncheon. About 600 ladies attend and that is A LOT of tables! I was asked create centerpieces. I decided to make paper flowers made from coffee filter.  Why coffee filters? They're inexpensive and the paper is sturdy enough to dye & work with. {Click the blue bar below to read more.} 

Artwork by Matt Warren

This was the theme of the conference . . . 

A box lunch was provided for each of the women. I loved the little labels the food committee created.

I found several tutorials but I liked this one the best. 

My tips for success:

• The supplies I used: these coffee filters, green straws for stems, these little aluminum buckets to put the flowers in & lots of green tape.
• I used food coloring to color the paper. One of the hardest things was getting the paper to dry after I dyed it. I tried putting the coffee filters in the clothes dryer & that did work. But I recommend not letting it dry all the way. Another strategy is to make the flowers with the white filters, then spray them with food coloring. 

Some of the ladies said that at first glance they thought the flowers were real & they wondered how we found so many peonies at this time of the year. And THAT made me smile.