Paper Glass

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Turn coffee filters into pretty paper glass with this crafty idea from a Nashville art teacher.

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Rachel Motta is an art teacher with the Metropolitan Nashville Public School district in Tennessee. A firm believer in the idea that art is for everyone, she loves planning lessons with projects that students can interpret in their own way, with no wrong answers. Here, she shares an example that was a hit with her students.

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A trio of exhibitions of Dale Chihuly's contemporary glass sculptures in Nashville inspired this project. Chihuly created a series of colorful, organic, bowl-shaped forms called Macchia (the word means spotted in Italian). For our student version, we used coffee filters. The translucency of the paper mimics the look of glass.

 

Use scissors to trim the edge of a coffee filter to create an uneven, organic shape.

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Make lines, spots, and blobs on the coffee filter with non-permanent markers.

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Drape the coffee filter over an upside-down plastic cup or yogurt container.

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Apply spray starch to the filter until the marker colors bleed together and the coffee filter is completely wet.

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Let the filter dry.