Coffee Filter Flowers

We recently started using a Chemex coffee pot (next to Blue Bottle, it makes the BEST coffee ever — anyone else with me?) and we had a stack of old filters collecting dust, waiting to be repurposed into watercolor coffee filter flowers!

I mixed a little water to liquid watercolors, and added droppers. You could also use food coloring and scavenge droppers from old bottles of Baby Tylenol.

The set-up

• Watercolors
• Flat-bottom coffee filters
• Droppers
• Tray to catch spills
• Covered table
• Bowl of Sequins (not necessary, but N insisted on this…you’ll soon see why)
• Green Pipe Cleaners

Squeeze some watercolor on the filters until you reach desired color combination/saturation level. You may not really care about the aesthetics at all, as the activity of squeezing watery paint is so enjoyable in its own right. If that’s the case, keep on squeezing!

And add some sequins, googly eyes, and fake plastic nails while you’re at it! I love how children are filled with their own novel ideas and believe it’s important to encourage imaginative play at every opportunity.

Over the course of half and hour, we worked side-by-side to color a bunch of coffee filters and let them dry overnight.

The next day, we had fun chopping the filters up into snowflakes, and wearing them as crowns. This was all N’s idea. And she decided her baby sister needed a crown too. You never know where art activities are going to take you!

To make the flowers (and these next steps are all me)…

1. Stack about 5 coffee filters like pancakes. I sandwiched unpainted filters between painted ones to give it more contrast.

2. Accordion-fold the filter stack and secure it with a pipe cleaner

Pull out the filters individually, giving it a all a nice puff.

And proudly display your Spring bouquet.

Find this post on My Delicious Ambiguity, ABC and 123, Play Academy @ Nurturstore, We Play