How to make Coffee Filter Paper Party Poms

And my serious obsession with the coffee filter continues ....
Learn how to make coffee filter party poms below!

(This was featured on Home & Family on the Hallmark Channel)
 

What you need:
Coffee Filters
One 12" Paper Lantern
Water
Food Coloring
Hot glue gun
String or Ribbon

Start with one package of regular round white coffee filters and a bowl of cold tap water. 

Now depending on what color you want your filters to be you need to add food coloring. I added 3 drops of red to get a light pink. If you want a light brown color, you can use 1 cup of strong coffee (no water) - just the cup of brewed coffee (which obviously already has water in it).

Now take a big stack of filters and submerge them in the colored water. If you are doing a bunch of filters just fill a big pot with water and do the whole stack of 200 filters all at once. Hold the filters in the colored water for about 20 seconds. They will absorb the color immediately.

Remove from the water.

Now wring dry. Try and get as much water as possible out of the filters. This will help with dry time. Don't worry, they won't rip. Coffee filters are strong so they can withstand the water. 

Lay the filters out to dry. You can let them air dry or you can they lay them on a baking sheet (about 15 per sheet) and put them in a 325 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until dry.

This is what they look like when dry. The brown coffee filters were just soaked in plain water since they came brown.

Fold all your filters. Fold in half first like a taco then place a dot of hot glue in the center of the taco and fold once more. You will add another dot of glue at the bottom of the folded filter and attach this directly to the paper lantern.

Next you will glue all your filters to your lantern. To watch me do this click here: Party Pom Video
You are basically layering them on top of each other going down the lantern.

This is what the finished poms look like. The pom on the left shows what it looks like before I scrunch the filters. The pom on the right shows what it looks like after I scrunch everything. Again to see how I scrunch the lanterns clik here: Party Pom Video