Coffee Filter Mums

I love fall.  It is by far my favorite season - from the pumpkins, to the crunchy leaves, to the crisp air.  One vivid childhood memory I have of fall is the huge gold spider mums that we used to wear on our sweaters during Pop Warner cheerleading.  We would sell them on game day as a fundraiser, and wear them pinned to our sweaters throughout the game.  Those memories come back through one glance at that bright gold color, almost as if I opened up a bottle of nostalgia.

I wanted to recapture that feeling in my mantle this fall.  I originally had the idea to do a large display of homemade paper mums using tissue paper.  I had a change of plans, however, after a trip to the dollar store.

I had read some different instructions online on how to make similar flowers, howeer all of them called for crepe paper.  I didn't have any crepe paper, though as I waled through the dollar store I decided that the tissue paper would be too thin and would tear easily.  I decided that coffee filters would have a similar feel to crepe paper.  I picked up a package of those and some food coloring.  Then, I picked up some floral tape and scoured the store for some dowel rods.  I came up empty, until I hit the kitchen aisle.  I found a pack of wooden chopsticks - the perfect stem.

I started by pouring about half of the yellow food coloring into 1/2 cup warm water.  I then just soaked the filters, wrung them out and hung them to drip dry.

Once they were dry, I layered and folded three at a time.

I then just atarted cutting pointed strips (almost the shape of a picket fence) until I had cut the whole "triangle" section.

Finally, I just twisted the base of the flower until it kind of fluffed out and then wrapped floral tape all the way down the chopstick.

That's it!  I made about 19 of them and put them in a basket on my mantle.  I'll share that with you soon!

XOXO

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