Coffee Nook Crafts

So for our anniversary my boyfriend bought me a Keurig (AMAZING!). I am a "drink coffee every single morning" type of girl.

SO I decided to convert a piece of furniture we had already in our tiny little living room into a coffee nook, since the cabinet was already near the kitchen I figured it was a good place to put everything. Especially since our kitchen is also tiny and pretty much filled to the max with kitchen supplies already.

Now, the actually conversion of the cabinet wasn't a big deal. It's an antique cabinet I found at a shop when I first moved down here. I had originally used it for a TV cabinet, it was perfect to store DVDs and supplies in. But, as I already mentioned, we've got a TINY kitchen...and I'm a girl who loves to cook & bake...so we were running out of storage space. We picked up a cheap black TV stand and moved the cabinet closer to the kitchen, it's currently filled with a crock pot, cast iron pan, waffle maker, ice cream maker, etc. When we first moved it I displayed all of my cookbooks on it. So the first step was finding space for them.

Next I just put the Keurig. Put a bowl full of K-Cups, a cute wooden & metal coffee sign that I had for awhile and a lamp. Ta-dah! We're done. Except something seemed off. There were photos hanging up on the wall that the cabinet was on...they were of a trip I took to New Orleans a few years ago. I just felt like they didn't flow well with the coffee set up. So I decided to get my crafting on and get started on the wall decor.

This was a pretty cheap project. I reused the frames that were holding my New Orleans pictures. They're just basic black (fake) marble frames. I picked them up at the dollar store forever ago. But here's what you'll need:

Black Frames (6 for $1 each at the Dollar Store)
Card Stock (cut to fit the frames: You can get a pack of card stock for about $6 at Walmart).
Yarn  (I already have a TON of yarn, but you can get a scan for about $3 at Walmart) I used 5 different colors for my project but you can scale it down to 3 for yours. You'll need a brown, coffee colored yarn, a gray yarn and whatever color(s) you'd like for the mugs.
Glue (I tried both Tacky Glue & Elmers Glue, I prefer the tacky glue-$3 at Walmart)

This project is really, really basic. And the only thing that takes some time is actually letting it dry. I sketched a basic outline of a coffee mug. Basically, a small circle, two straight lines coming down from the left most part and the right most part of the circle. A curved line to attach the two straight lines at the bottom. And a c to make a handle.

Next, I globbed a bunch of glue in the circle. I then started to place the yarn in a spiral to create the coffee inside the mug. Next I outlined the mug itself and then used both spiraling and some random patterns to fill in the mug. Think of it as painting with glue and yarn. :-)

After I filled in the sketch and I was satisfied with how the mugs look, I just waited for them to dry. A LONG time. About 2 nights worth. The yarn soaks up a lot of the glue, but also slowed down the drying process.

After they finally did dry, I put them in the frames and hung them on the wall.

Here are a few examples:

Now, this wall is really tall so I needed something else. When I first moved into my apartment I painted some large coffee mugs that used to hang above the couch. So I grabbed my favorite of the 2 coffee mug paintings and hung that as the centerpiece. Then hung three of my yarn art above and three below. I'm pretty happy with the outcome...and I really enjoy making my coffee in the morning. :-)

And the finished project:

 I love how cozy it makes our apartment feel and I love that I gave myself a bit more room in the kitchen not having the Keurig in there.

Hope you enjoy!