Red, White and Blue Coffee Filter Wreath

Celebrate America with a fun and festive red, white and blue wreath that’s made from colored coffee filters! Get the whole family in the patriotic spirit by getting the kids involved in this project (under adult supervision, of course)!

Materials:

• White coffee filters
• Blue food coloring
• Red food coloring
• Plastic cups
• Newspaper
• 7″ inch Styrofoam ring (any size will work, 7″ is the size used in this tutorial)
• Straight pins OR hot glue gun
• Pipe cleaner

Directions:

Put red food coloring into plastic cup, and add a small amount of water. Test the color intensity by dipping coffee filter into cup. To enhance color, add more food coloring to cup (in this example, I used 1 bottle of food coloring diluted in about 4 tablespoons of water). Repeat with blue food coloring in second cup.

Fold coffee filters into triangular shapes and dip into cups of food coloring. To save time, fold many filters together and dip. Lay flat on newspaper to let them dry.

After filters are dry, pinch the center of each filter and twist tightly to create a small tail, but still leaving the outer part of the filter full and un-twisted  (as pictured). *This is  a great step to get the kids involved in – it’s fun for them, and it makes the process go much more quickly! 🙂

Begin constructing the outer ring of the wreath by pushing a straight pin through the twisted “tail” of the filter and into the outer rim of the Styrofoam ring. Alternatively, you may prefer to use hot glue instead of straight pins, which will work just as well.

Do the same to create a ring of white filters and red filters, working in to the middle of the ring. You may need to add an extra ring of red in the inside of the circle, to cover any visible Styrofoam.

Cut a pipe cleaner in half, bend it into a U-shape, and push the ends into the Styrofoam, creating a hook to hang your wreath from. A dab of hot glue on each end will help to secure the pipe cleaner hook into the wreath.

Hang and enjoy your patriotic decoration!

*FYI: If you’re wondering how many coffee filters you’ll need for this project, here’s what I used:

For the 7″ styrofoam circle, I used 52 blue filters on the outer ring, 25 white filters for the middle layer, and 55 red filters on the 2 inner rings.