Alice in Wonderland Theme Party: Red Paper Flowers

My best friend is having an Alice in Wonderland theme party for my twin God daughters for their first birthday. Needless to say, I wanted to help her decorate for the festivities. The twins have two older sisters and their birthday parties were amazing. Check out this Candyland themed party and this circus themed party. So, we started brainstorming ideas. I recently made these coffee filter paper flowers (see below) and I thought they would be perfect for the painting red roses scene when Alice meets the Queen of Hearts.

Dying coffee filter paper flowers is extremely inexpensive and easy to do. Here are the materials you need:

Bowl
Red food coloring
Water
Coffee filter paper flowers
Rubber gloves
Newspaper

To make the actual paper flower, check out the tutorial here. Once your flowers are made, here are the two easy steps to dye them.

Step One: Depending on the hue of red you desire, mix several drops of food coloring and about three tablespoons of water in a bowl.

Step Two: I tried two different ways. Dipping the pre-made flower and dipping the individual filters. Wearing rubber gloves carefully dip the paper flower (or individual filters) into the color mixture and set it aside to dry on the newspaper.

Here are pictures of each. I let them dry overnight.

When they were dry, I noticed that the dipped flower had a nice deeper red color on the edges while the filters that were dipped individually were not. Here is a photo. It’s very subtle, but I like the former better.