how to dye coffee filters

I’ve long been infatuated with paper flowers, so I recently decided to make peonies from coffee filters (you can see the tutorial here.) I thought a quick & easy tutorial on how to make these beauties would be perfect to share with my readers. WAIT. Did I say quick? The truth is that just gathering my supplies has taken me an entire afternoon. So you’re getting not one but TWO tutorials – one just on the technique of dying coffee filters.

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So let’s begin with how to dye coffee filters. It isn’t difficult, but it is time consuming.

supplies needed:

• white coffee filters (10 per flower)
• food coloring & glass bowls
• old towel, paper towels
• baking sheet & parchment paper

step 1 – prepare coffee filters

I bought a large pack of white coffee filters. I wanted to make about a dozen flowers (it takes 10 filters per flower), so I counted out 12 stacks of 10 filters. It is best to separate the filters individually when creating the piles rather than leaving them tightly pressed together. (Trust me, it will be easier when handling them later on.)

step 2 – dye coffee filters

Before beginning, make sure you protect the surface you are working on. I placed a piece of cardboard on my kitchen counter. Next, I put about 10 – 15 drops of regular (not gel) food coloring into a glass bowl. I added 2 cups of water and stirred. I wanted soft colors for peonies, so I used yellow food coloring in one bowl, red (to make a soft pink) in another, and red & yellow combined in a third bowl to create a salmon color. Don’t be afraid to experiment  with combining the dyes to achieve just the shades you want. 

Next I placed an old cloth towel on my workspace.  Then I dipped a whole stack of 10 filters into a bowl of dye. You’ll need to push them down until they are fully covered by the dye. Let sit for at least 20 minutes. Then gently separate them and place them on the towel to dry. Using paper towels, blot them to help absorb the liquid.

step 3 – dry coffee filters

I found the quickest way to dry the dyed filters was to place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. It’s fine if they overlap a bit; I filled one entire sheet with 10 filters. Bake at 250 degrees for 7 minutes.

Because I had 12 stacks of filters to dye, it became quite an assembly line process. Dye the filters;  separate them onto the towel; place on baking sheet; place in oven; while baking, place another pile of filters into the empty bowl of dye; and so on, and so on, and so on. Make sure there’s something captivating on Netflix while you spend the afternoon dyeing these little fellas. But hey, once you’re done, the colors look amazing and you can start to imagine those garden peonies.

Tip: My friend, who is an avid baker, suggested using Wilton food coloring for deeper colors. And there you have it. Beautifully colored coffee filters just waiting to be transformed into lovely flowers. (Check out this easy tutorial for making these peonies.)

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