One of my art teacher roles is often to teach my students that the hand made gifts are truly the best. This is an easy project that is fun for all ages. You should have seen my seventh grade students working on this yesterday – the enthusiasm made my day.
If your peonies don’t like mine do right now, then make your own for Mother’s Day!
Start with plain white paper coffee filters. Draw on them with water-based markers. Try multiple colors, different designs, and even coloring the entire coffee filter with color.
Spray with water in a spray bottle. I recommend doing this over newspaper to catch any colored water that will inevitably soak your work surface.
Your designs will turn into watery, tie-dye like motifs. Allow the filters to dry completely.
Once they are dry, you can now begin to cut them up, layer them, and create your flowers.
Fold the filter in half, then in half again, and then into a pie slice shape.
Cut designs along the top curved edge – like a paper snowflake. These cuts will form the petals of your flowers, so experiment with different cuts. Once the petal designs are cut, open the flower up, pinch in the middle, and twist. This will create the base of the flower. Now you can add a stem out of pipe cleaner, or glue them onto a piece of paper for a card.
Add some leaves, a garden or vase, a background, and a nice note and you have a card. Wasn’t that better and more fun than buying a card in the store?
This flower was made with two different filters layered within one another. Go ahead and make a bunch of these filters so you have extras for mistakes or multiple layered flowers. Just remember that your colors will run into one another so choose your colors based on how they look after they mix!
Bluebird Hill Art 