Coffee filter carnation pen

If you work in an office or a business where people are using pens sometime the pens just seem to walk away, and you never have a pen when you need one.  So it’s fun to have decorative pens in a flowerpot filled with beans or rice.  It brightens up the space and they stick around a bit longer.  This project cost practically nothing.  I bought both the coffee filters and a pack of pens for a around a dollar each!  Add some floral tape and acrylic paint and you can make a whole bouquet of cute carnation pens.

You will need:

Stick pen for each carnation

Coffee filters

Roll of green floral tape

Transparent tape

Paper plates

Acrylic paint in desired color (I used red and burgundy)

Small paintbrush

Scissors

1.     Fold the coffee filter in half and cut along the pleat lines towards the center just to the fold line that marks the edge of the pleats.  Repeat this all around.  Repeat this step with two more coffee filters for a total of three

2.     Using the scissors round out the tips of each petal on all three coffee filters.

3.     Open the filters up and mark the center and cut out a small opening in the center of each prepared filter. (This will be where you insert the pen top)

4.     Layer all three filters together and insert the pen top into the holes you made.  Using your fingers, gather together on the pen top.  Use some transparent tape to attach the base to the pen making sure you attach some tape to the pen itself.  It is ok if you add a generous amount of tape here since carnations have a thickness at the base.

5.     Cut a piece of green floral tape and begin wrapping around starting from the top and working down the pen.  Stop just before the pointed tip.  Floral tape sticks to itself and it helps if you press on the tape with your fingers.

6.     Color the carnation.  Add a tiny bit of water to a paper plate. In another section of the paper plate add your main color and thin some of it with the water.  Use the brush to add the thinned color to the flower.  You do not need much since the filter draws in the liquid.  After the color has dried a bit tap the tips only with the un-diluted acrylic paint.  Let dry.