Recycled coffee-filter flower - tutorial

Take a short advice : follows a long and heavy pictured post.

Please forgive my blue colored fingers showed durig these images, they are due to a previous tutorial - still in work. That will follow soon ;)

So, perhaps many of you knows how to make a flower from a recycled coffee filter. This post is to show you my way and also to demonstrate the others that a handmade flower ( recycled or not ) means A LOT OF WORK and TIME. Just to understand....

If YOU will make ,or already made, such a RECYCLED flower, you have all my appreciation . Because recycling is a good manner to demonstrate that you care about your life. For now and for the future.

Let's start :

Take a used coffee filter. I mean really used. ;)

please try not to lick your fingers. LOL

wash it thoroughly and put it to dry 

once it's dried, cut some flower shapes with the BigShot dies that comes in the standard package. Nothing fancy. You can try to use a punch but I was not successful with that . I don't recommend using a punch on the coffee-filter.  Fold the filter in half and run it through the machine. You'll get 8 pieces from one filter . Just enough for one flower. 8 petals. Don't throw away your filter. You can cut something more from it .

 

  

Now cut the same shape but this time from a heavy cardstock.

Recycled , of course, what did you think ?

This piece is the support for distressing the petal edges. Each petal you will set up on the cardstock and with a sponge dauber ( also a diy one from a bottle cap and some old dishwashing sponges ) distress the edges ( I choose vintage gold this time ) 

Gather all of your petals and with a piercing tool make a hole trough the center. 

Now you have to gather all the petals with something : a brad or .... a bead on some wire. I choose here to show you how I put the bead. 

Push the bead until it hits the paper, then open on the back the wire legs.

Don't worry about the legs being too long, we'll cut them after the next step . 

Start folding/ crumpling each petal around the bead in a completely free way. Crumple and squeeze, crumple and squeeze....until the last one petal, included. 

 You'll get a ...bud. Now it's time to undo all that you have done previously. Yes, I know.  LOL . 

Start to spread out petal by petal until you are pleased with the form obtained.  A fluffy flower. 

If you un-fluff it more, you'll see the glimpse of the bead in the center, otherwise it is quite well hidden. ;) 

Now let's take care about those long wire legs from the back of the flower. Cut them according to your flower bottom. With a jewelry plier/snipper ( don't use your scissors for this, ok ? !! :) ) 

To hide them properly and also to make a base for gluing the flower onto anything else, you''ll cut a circle from the scraps of the left filter . Remember ? I told you not to throw it away ...

And glue the circle with your preferred glue ( wet glue , silicone or whatever you consider it's strong enough over the wire ) . 

Now you have a flower . A recycled flower. A recycled coffee-filter flower. 

Made by you :D . 

Pretty easy, isn't it ? 

Time consuming ? you bet ! 

Now run and wash your hands because you have to make a card to put the flower on show. Right ? 

Something like this :