I Love Coffee ~

I don't drink it, but I sure do brew up a lot of it!


Dyed coffee filter wreaths were the centerpieces on each table at my recent event, and were the raffle prizes. They were a big hit! So much so that several of the women ran home to dye coffee filters, and will be back here Friday night to make wreaths ~ and I finally got my dining room cleaned. Well, I guess we call that a blank slate, right!? The glue guns will be fired up and the glitter flying!

I've added the simple dying instructions at the end of this post. Be warned though if you make one, it's the kind of thing that makes guys question our sanity ~ not mine, he's used to this kind of thing. Please share, I'd love to see your creations!

Creating in the ballroom


The tradition of hanging cones on the chandelier continues...


Janet ~ you made my blog!
She's going to be so thrilled


For such a fabulous event, it's disappointing to not have equally wonderful pics! If you'd like to peek at more ~ you can see them here. Several of us were having camera issues, and the lighting . . . oh, this has been a sad theme around here lately (as you can see from the very blurry pics in recent posts.)

We got the Little One, my budding photographer, a new camera for Christmas that I hope she'll share (or I'll sneak when she's at school,) a Nikon 40D, lucky girl! Maybe Santa will bring me one too...

Have fun ~

To dye filters: Dip a whole chunk/section of basket style (not cone) coffee filters in 4 cups of brewed coffee, let excess coffee drain off for a minute, separate slightly and place in dryer on med/low heat for ONLY 10 min, check, separate & fluff and put on for ONLY another 10 min - easy! Don't worry if they are wrinkled - it doesn't matter. And please, we all know what heat can do to paper, so be careful! These dry very quickly when separated. You can air dry them, but the coloring will be streaky, not uniform ~ experiment!

Colored fliters: If you want a lighter shade, add more water - if you want it slightly colored, add tea (I used pomegranate tea to make a slight pink tone,) or add a drop of food coloring to coffee - blue in weak coffee makes a nice vintage robins egg color!

One chunk/section of filters is more than enough to do a 12" wreath - you know how they're packaged in several "chunky" sections in the package?

Lighting up my life ~

It's been a long time since I played with coffee filters. The last time was when I was in art school and had to create a wearable design made from anything but fabric, which was very fun! It seems there has been a resurgence in the simple coffee filter as an art medium, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon. This string of lights now brightens my entryway (inspired by Andrea who used sewing pattern paper and Candylights,) was a way to pass this looong winter!

I used a string of lights I bought at Ikea, which I love because it has lots of tiny lights on the string ($20.} Each filter was dipped in hubby's leftover coffee by grabbing it in the center, then letting each dry with the edge side down ~ they look like a little mountain range drying atop the pizza box.

I cut each "flower" down a bit, some more than others, and even layered two together here and there. Each was attached using strips of the leftover scraps I cut and a glue stick. First I made a band that wrapped under the string and up each side of the base. To finish and secure it, I wrapped a piece around the base a couple times.

One of my favorite "aged patina" colors is that wonderful caramel coffee stained color. Not sure why I didn't think of it before, but next time I go to the paint store I'll bring an old stained coffee filter!

If you'd like to see more of my "aged patina" pieces, come visit me on Kari's blog, A Year of Color. She's featured some pics from my home. This month's theme is monochromatic, but I used that a bit loosely. Oops! I forgot it's a private blog - here's the lineup of featured guest artists, and here is how you can view it.

Hope you enjoy!

xo Heidi