Coffee, Java, Cappuccinoooo...

Hello and good morning!!

Have you had your coffee yet?

I've got lots of activities going on over the next few days leaving me little to no time to make any new cards (gasp!), so I will be pulling from my archives.  Today I am highlighting one of my favorite cards.

This came about from a challenge issued over at StampNation to make a card in neutral colors.  Can you guess what the coloring medium is?  Well, if you guessed ink, you'd be wrong.  If you guessed tea, wrong again.  However, if you guessed coffee, bells would go off and you'd be the winner.  Ding ding ding!  Yep, good old Folger's instant.  Years and years ago I bought a couple of watercolor paintings in Mexico that consisted of street scenes painted in coffee, and I loved those pieces so much and have mourned their loss for so long that I decided to play with the technique myself.  So I brewed up a tiny amount of very strong, almost syrup-like, instant coffee in a custard cup and painted it onto watercolor paper with paintbrushes.  The image, an Inkadinkado stamp w/no name, was stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa onto watercolor paper, then washed with a thin glaze of coffee and (mostly) water.  Then the painting began, using different strengths of the coffee blended on the brush.  I have to say it was fun watching the image come alive.  It was layered onto a Dienamics oval doily die and popped up on top of yet another oval, then adhered to the Soft Suede (or was it Early Espresso?) dry embossed layer, which was layered on top of Very Vanilla, which was on the base layer of Early Espresso (or was it Soft Suede).  Some coffee-dyed seam binding and brown pearls were all that was needed to finish off the card.

To this day it is still one of my favorite cards, and I think I need to make another one (different image).  Maybe next time I'll use some of the red berries from the Chinese Pistache tree in my garden.  Or some produce from the grocery store.  Organic coloring media abound out there!

Thank you for visiting me, and have a lovely day. 

Happy Crafting!