There was a challenge a while back to use coffee in your projects. I really liked the idea as I really like coffee! I thought it would be fun to paint with coffee and I was reminded of a painting that hangs in the hallway of my children's school of a women painted with coffee. I mentioned this art my art class and my instructor told me that it was probably painted by a women who used to live in Elmhurst named Eleanor King Hookham. I looked her up and she used coffee quite often with her printmaking. So, I decided that over the weekend we, the kids and I, would paint with coffee. It was super cold (this was two weekends ago, this weekend was sunny! Yea! ) and so painting was a good thing to do over the weekend.
I made this card to go with the challenge on
splitcoaststampers.
This stamp is from
Helping me grow, a favorite from the Occasions catalog.
A few things to know about painting with coffee. I wanted different tones of coffee, and really found that it just doesn't happen if you just pour a little bit of you coffee onto a saucer and paint away. My first attempt left all the tones exactly the same and I would have to wait for it to dry and then add another layer to darken it, and then let it dry and do it again. I decided to let the coffee sit out all day in a shallow paint holder thingy I have and that way a lot of the water evaporated and I added a couple drops to one, a little more water to one, and so on.
Instant coffee would have been better because then you could mix up little batches in various strengths. I didn't have any instand coffee though, so I had to work with what I had. I am going to pick some up next shopping trip though, for art not drinking :)
I started by using a stamp very lightly in crumb cake ink, just to get my image on the watercolor paper.
I then painted the image just as usual, only using my coffee! The card actually smells like coffee too, which is fun.
When I mentioned the coffee idea at art class a couple others were keen to try it out and one of the ladies said she had an actual print of Eleanor Hookam at her home. I said I would play around with coffee over the weekend to see what worked and bring in something to next class, and she said she would bring in her piece of art too.
Here is what I brought, thinking I should actually draw something since it is a drawing class after all and not a stamping class :)
I wasn't sure what I wanted to draw and I was trying to get the kids involved and let them decide what we would work on. They decided on super heroes or monsters! I should not have been surprised. Jillian wanted a comic book style and got out a book on how to draw comics, so went with that, althought I would much prefer flowers or birds :)
Jillian would NOT use coffee though. She said it was the color of mud and yucky so why would she want her drawing to be yucky? Zachary loved the idea of painting with coffee but would not do a comic. David didn't want to paint at all. Why did I think this would be an easy fun thing for us to do on a cold February day?
Here is Jillian's work, love her super hero women. She used my idea but wanted her woman to be powered by orange juice instead of coffee.
Zachary made a Monsters' Inc. inspired drawing.
I used a waterproof micron pen for the drawing and then painted over it with the coffee.
I hope you like my projects today! and I hope that you will give it a try. Here is a link to the challenge on
splitcoaststampers.
YES! Do you love to craft? Probably if you are here the answer is yes! I love it, and 11 years ago I joined Stampin' Up! as a demonstrator because I loved to craft, particularly scrapbook. I went to a lot of Stampin' Up! workshops and always bought something, usually quite a bit. I would plan it out, say to myself, this month I will buy things in the 'Rich Regals' family and then next time I will focus on the 'Soft Subtles'. I really wanted to have all the inks because I loved to have options, and I loved the papers and markers and ribbon and on and on. The demonstrator I went to would tell me I should sign up, she told me I would get a discount, but I wouldn't do it. I didn't want to sell. I had a small baby and I didn't think I could do workshops or hold classes. I didn't want to deal with paper work or some unknown things. I just wanted to craft. But I did want the ribbon, hmmm....
Jillian would NOT use coffee though. She said it was the color of mud and yucky so why would she want her drawing to be yucky? Zachary loved the idea of painting with coffee but would not do a comic. David didn't want to paint at all. Why did I think this would be an easy fun thing for us to do on a cold February day?
Birthday Cards that is!! Some of you may be aware of a new campaign to bring the sending of birthday cards back into the norm. One of my favorite employees at the Stampin' Up! home office started her own little campaign a little while ago and it has grown into a big thing and Stampin' Up! even took one of her hand carved stamps and is making it into a purchasable stamp for this campaign. Shannon was even on Good Things Utah to talk about her campaign, you can see it here. 
Have you seen the perpetual birthday calendar? It is really cute! It comes with a hard clipboard and 12 blank sheets of dates, one for each month. It also comes with lots of embellishments and alphabet stickers and glitter and a sponge, ribbon, etc.
You can purchase the coordinating stamp set, or use your own to make the headers. There are actually a couple fun sets that contain the months of the year, the Day to Day Project Life set and the Hello Baby Project Life set are great choices for calendars. I have to say though that I really am glad I bought the matching set because of the 'sprinkle' stamps as I am calling them.
