How to Coffee-Stain Silk Flowers

Hello Sweet Friends,

Today, I am sharing a DIY idea that I hope you will find useful year-round; how to coffee-stain silk flowers for a more vintage look. Sometimes I have white artificial/silk flowers that are just TOO white. And I feel that they would be so much better with a more old-fashioned LOOK to them.

The grapevine wreath in my living room desperately needed an update. If I’m being serious, it needed a COMPLETE overhaul. So I started buying off-white and cream colored faux flowers and foliages getting ready to change it over. The only hydrangeas I could find were stark white but otherwise were very beautiful. So, instant coffee to the rescue!

Follow along to learn step-by-step how to easily coffee-stain silk flowers for any home decor project.

Supply List

White silk flowers of any kind (I used hydrangeas for this project)
instant coffee
shallow dish
water

As you can see in the above photo, this white hydrangea is very white. I wanted it to match the other flowers I had purchased for my wreath, so I decided to coffee stain it.

Let’s Coffee Stain this Silk Flower

I filled a disposable container half-full with water and added a few teaspoons of instant coffee. For a darker stain, just add more coffee!

Simply dunk the flower into the coffee water, making sure that all of the petals get soaked. Lift the flower out of the water and let it drip for a few second. Blot on a paper towel if desired.

Below is one coffee-stained hydrangea next to a white one. The difference is very slight, but that is the perfect amount of color for this project.

Air Dry the Coffee-Stain Silk Flowers

There were a total of three faux hydrangeas that I coffee-stained. I let them dry outside, so that any dripping or mess would be outside rather than inside.

As the coffee water dried on the hydrangeas, the colors pooled at the edges of the petals for a very realistic look. To be honest, they looked like dried hydrangeas. So PRETTY!