Fabulous Floral Wreath

So, I know this blog is about food but I'm pretty excited about this wreath that I just finished.  It's my 1st wreath ever!  I saw a great autumn wreath on Pinterest by Jones Design Company (LOVE the tutorials) and set out to make a similar one.  Well, my wreath is definitely more spring time than autumn but I'll take it!  

My original plan included adding in some berries and leaves like the JDC one that I originally fell in love with, but once I started putting it together, I decided to make it all flowers instead.  

I set out with a pack of coffee filters from Dollar Tree, acrylic paints, scotch tape, a grapevine wreath and glue gun.  

To dye the filters, I filled a cup with water and added paint.  With every color, I added some brown paint to give them a little deeper, fall color (well that was the intention, probably should have added a little more brown).  Then, I took a stack of filters, and carefully sunk them into the paint-water.  After letting them soak for a bit, I squeezed out the excess and let them dry.  I did notice that when I didn't squeeze out the excess but let the majority of it drip out, they retained a more color (pretty obvious I guess).  Then, I let them dry.  

Once the filters were dry (doesn't take took long) the fun began.  I made a few realllly ugly flowers before I got the hang of it.  So, if you make one too, don't worry, you'll get it.  

I found that using a stack of 3 filters at a time made for a good, standard size.  Of course I couldn't make them all the same size, so I did a range of 1-5 filters per flower.  Starting off, I folded the stack into quarters.  Next, cut a scalloped section out of the center and then scalloped the top.  Then, taking the ring, I made a single cut to open it up.  

Next up, take the center pieces and twist them in the middle to create the inner petals.  Now, the fun part.  Take the rings basically make a ruffle with them.  If you crease the ruffles you get a different look than if you do a slightly looser ruffle that just kind of rolls (it makes sense once you start doing it).  One thing that helps is to try to keep the tops of the ruffles in a relatively straight line- this will help you in the next step (again, makes sense when you do it).

Now, we roll with it!  Starting with the petals that were created with the center pieces, roll!  Then, fluff, and viola, you have a flower!  I spent many a night on the couch watching TV making flowers:) 

Next up, I laid it all out, trimmed the ends of the flowers and started gluing.  After going through all of my flowers (160 pack of filters), I realized that I needed more flowers.  So, More flowers I made.

In the end, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  Definitely, not how I originally planned, but I'm happy with it.  It'll be cute for our door come spring!