Coffee Filter Craft

I've been asked by a few people about the decorations that we used for my daughters 21st birthday last year; in particular the 21 sign. 
 
To be honest, the final design was nothing like the original brief that the girls wanted.

When I sat down with them to go over their plans, the first option was a feature wall totally covered with fresh white flowers.  Hmmm, unfortunately this did not fit within the budget, so they needed to be more creative in their ideas.

The second option presented was a feature wall totally covered with fresh hydrangeas.  I was pretty impressed with their case, considering the plan was to pick the hydrangeas roadside because they are everywhere on the side of the road were we live.  Unfortunately the birthday was in the middle of winter so hydrangeas via roadside was not an option.

The third option was artificial flowers, store brought ready to glue onto the feature wall.  Turned out, this was a more expensive option than having fresh brought flowers.

The fourth and final option was to create their own artificial flowers.  A much cheaper but more importantly, a more creative option.  Now to find the materials.

When we cleaned out the shed to make room for the party, we found an old sheet of chipboard and a piece of polystyrene which the girls used as the base and cut out the numbers.

With the help of their father, the numbers were secured to the boards, however not fully flush to the board because they wanted fairy lights behind the piece. 

Now for the flowers.  A quick search on pinterest was needed and they found an easy way of making the flowers using large commercial coffee filters, hot glue and existing paint that was watered down.

The instructions said to fold the filters into quarters and cut into shape, but the girls simply played around with them until they got the look they were after using approximately 6 filters per flower, then twisting the bottom of each flower to keep it all together.

The instructions also showed the girls how to dye to flowers prior to forming the shape, however the girls improvised, dabbing watered down paint onto the edges of the flowers.  As the filters absorb easily, there was very little paint needed.

The flowers then needed time to dry, which gave us time to give the chipboard a quick coat of black paint.  

Then it was time to glue them onto the numbers and add the fairy lights.

I have very impressed with the final product, and the effort the girls put in to making a creative, affordable option that went so well with all the other decorations for the party.

 Happy living peeps!