The Bake Sale

I hope you all had a terrific weekend! 

There was a bake sale at church a few Sundays ago and this got me dreaming up of some blah to TADA! ideas. I've never participated in a bake sale before, so let's consider this as a brainstorming session.

image via Real Simple

Bake sales are organised to raise funds for different groups like churches, schools and charities. 

The merchandise are usually sweet items that are baked at home and are donated by the bakers. These are commonly sold by the piece (ex. cookies or a slice of pie), but can also be sold as a whole (ex. one entire pie or whole loaf of banana bread). 

The prices are very friendly and the profits raised go to the group or charity. 

Sometimes, people don't necessarily want to buy for reasons like diet or food allergies, but they still want to support the cause. That's why it's good to have a donation jar on hand.

 blah: a clean deli container

 TADA!: instant donation jar

Plastic is ideal because it won't break when coins are donated. 

 But of course, I had to embellish, right?

Now won't this get some attention

and encourage gracious giving?

See you back tomorrow for more

bake sale suggestions!

The Cup Artist

Happy Friday! "Coffee" is the week's theme and I thought best to end the topic with another talented individual creating art out of coffee cups.

His name is Cheeming Boey. He is a foam cup artist. Born and raised in Malaysia, he admitted to being a "terrible student" who was "bad at math and English," so he turned to art. He moved to California to study computer game design and eventually became an animator. One day, he was at a coffee shop and had the urge to draw. But he didn't have any paper. 

No paper, no problem. He fished out a foam cup from the trash and began drawing on it.

Foam cups, a Sharpie marker and a wild imagination were the only tools he needed to turn blah into TADA!:

His first few works were displayed in his cubicle at work. A co-worker asked him what he was going to do with all these cups. He said he was going to sell them. "No one is going to buy that crap, Boey," his co-worker retorted. But people did. And are still doing so, paying hundreds of dollars for his masterpieces. Take that, co-worker!

The hobby he started in 2006 is now a flourishing business. His work is so impressive, he's been featured in major publications and videos.

For potential buyers, his foam cup artworks are mounted on cork and encased in an acrylic box, lest someone at home accidentally gets rid of it, thinking it's "just a cup with a drawing". Duh.

In one of his interviews, Boey says, "To me just because something is labelled disposable, doesn't mean it has to be. It is what you make of it."

A once fuzzy vision of the future, the lack of drawing paper or criticism did not stop this young man from relishing the sweet taste of success. Boey, I raise my cup to you!

Images borrowed from Sharpie and I am Boey.

Caffeinated Patterns

Cold, stale coffee is blah. Want to turn it into TADA!?

Start off with coffee left over from breakfast or your coffee break. We'll use it to make pretty patterns on paper.

Keep these old, blah items handy: an empty spritz bottle or medicine dropper. A squeeze bottle or turkey baster are other options.

Collect a small amount of coffee using any of the above tools, and make random drops/spritzes on a sheet of paper.  Allow to dry. Use some tissue to dab excess liquid or let the coffee slide off the page (into the sink) to create another kind of pattern. 

TADA! Here's what the patterns look like once dry.

Put these in a frame or turn these into 

gift wrap or stationery.

I made them into envelopes by cutting the paper

into a square and folding in the sides.

An old envelope can also be used as a pattern. Just open it up, trace it around the coffee-print paper, cut accordingly, and glue the edges.

TADA! These envelopes have a coffee scent, too.

As a finishing touch, I added a wax seal.

Hope you liked this blah to TADA! project.

Have a nice day!

The Coffee Painters

One summer in my youth, I took art lessons. In class, we learned how to draw things like still life, landscapes, and portraits using pencil, acrylic, and watercolor. Our teacher always asked, "Where is your light coming from?" or "What is the wind's direction?" Aside from understanding the basics of art, I think the greatest lesson I learned was to be  observant of details. 

It's been a while since I took out my sketchpad, but I haven't stopped admiring art -- on sidewalks, museums, and even on-line. I'm sharing a few with you, and the common thread here is that they're all painted using coffee!

Let's begin with painter Cheryl Buerhing from Tennessee who finds inspiration in God's creation:

"Magnolia" by Cheryl Buehring

"Birdhouse" by Cheryl Buehring

"Country Charm" by Cheryl Buehring

(the pink shades are made of beet juice & tumeric)

Luis E. Aparicio, based in Puerto Rico, makes these architectural sketches using coffee:

"Boulevard des Lices" by Luis E. Aparicio

"Cafarela en cuatro sombras" by Luis E. Aparicio 

  "Cafarela en Campechada I" by Luis E. Aparicio

Massimo Bernacchi, an artist based in Pisa, can custom-design portraits:

 Portrait made with Italian coffee by Massimo Bernacchi

 Portrait by Massimo Bernacchi; you have to

smell it to believe that it's made of coffee

Tasmania-based Samantha Dennis prefers instant coffee as a medium for portraiture:

 "Portrait of a toddler painted with Coffee"

by Samantha Dennis

"Portrait of a man carrying coffee" 

by Samantha Dennis

If you have the knack for painting and have some left-over coffee from breakfast, would you like to try out this technique? I think it's blah to TADA!

Coffee Sleeves

I've lined up a couple of coffee projects this week. You like coffee, don't you? I think it's TADA! It smells wonderful and is energizing. But there are things left over after consumption, like paper cups or these cardboard sleeves:

These sleeves protect your fingers from the hot liquid

that warm up the paper cup.

I like that they're made of recycled fiber

and are compostable. 

But realistically, we won't carry this around to use 

for our next cup, right? So here's what I

would do to turn 'em from blah to TADA!:

TADA! I decorated it with paper cut-outs!

This one has a cherry blossom theme.

Do you like the 3-D effect?

Polka-dots are cute, too.

Ink and rubber stamps spell out a quirky request.

And here's how I would re-use them:

When giving a reusable mug as a present, I would use this sleeve in lieu of packaging it in gift wrap. I would write my message at the back, the same way baristas write your name when you order a drink.

Or I would "wrap" a bottle of beer in it for a colleague who's had a hard day. TADA!

A Cup of Coffee

Happy New Week Folks! This week is all about coffee. I'll leave it at that for now. Coffee,

one of the world's favorite beverages, is a TADA! in itself. How can we make it even more TADA!? You'll have to tune in to find out.

Let me start with something I saw recently, which literally stopped me in my tracks. I was cutting through Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan when, at the glass-enclosed base of the Flat Iron building (called the "Prow"), there was an on-going exhibit.

 It was called Hypergraphia: The Cup Drawings

 The artist, Gwyneth Leech, transformed these used, blah coffee cups into...

 ...TADA! works of art

About 800 or so coffee cups with unique hand-drawn designs were hung on fishing string, making for a mesmerizing installation.

What was even cooler? The artist was there! Part of the experience was seeing her fully immersed in cup-drawing, even inviting passers-by to join her inside to draw on a cup or two.

Miss Leech, a painter by profession, began drawing on empty paper cups during meetings in 2007. She didn't have any sketchpads on hand, but she had a coffee cup. Why not?

To amass this collection, this is what she did: 

"I save the cups from the hot drinks I buy and occasionally collect them from other artists with whom I meet for tea or coffee around town. I wash and dry them and record on the bottom the date, place and occasion, as well as the drink that was consumed, thus capturing the social moment just passed."

She also invited people to bring their used cups to the art space, provided they were washed beforehand, no Styrofoam cups were accepted, and the bottom of the cup had to declare the name of the cup donor and the date the beverage was consumed (the cup now had some history!).

I wonder what information she found out and how she'd use them.

Here are a few of my favorites:

"I am a painter living in New York City, always on the lookout for the extraordinary ordinary," is how she describes herself. All I can say is, extraordinary work Miss Leech, truly extraordinary!

You may learn more about Miss Leech through her website, Facebook page and blog.