Le Café

This is for Traci (hugs, habibi! and thanks for reading!)

As most of you know Grant and I love coffee. Coffee is the glorious little drug that I don't think that we could ever give up. I know it is terrible for us, I know we should cut back, but dang it...it is just so good.

As a matter of fact I am drinking it right now!

One of the best perks (chuckle, do you like my joke!?) we have found from combing our favorite coffee haunts is that these establishments occasionally either sell or give away their old imported coffee sacks. What is even cooler, is that these sacks aren't just plain burlap (although they usually have those too) sometimes you can find ones with fantastic graphic designs on them from their region of import.

In college, our friends Jenny and Andrew were the first to use these sacks as a means of decorating their new home. All of our group of friends thought it was super swanky and could not wait to do the same.

We are all disciples of the coffee bean...and yes, we know we are a bit cultish about it.

So, you get a fantastic coffee sack and what do you do with it? Well, if you are Jenny (who has a fantastic crafty blog you should all check out http://penniesandhearts.blogspot.com/) then you make the coffee sack a fantastic work of art to hang on the wall!

There are a couple of ways to do this, but here is the easiest. Buy a large, pre-stretched canvas from your local craft store (the kind with the wooden frames on the back) and staple the coffee sack to it for instant wall art! Eureka! One trick of the trade, make sure you center your coffee sack on the frame and staple each side in the MIDDLE first! This ensures make that you don't twist the coffee sack while you staple it and end up with a crooked picture. You can get any size canvas you want and crop the picture accordingly. Also, a staple gun will make this project take no time (or sweat) at all.

Another fantastic idea is to make throw pillow cases out of the coffee sacks. I would only do this though if you find a sack that is on the softer side...burlap is scratchy y'all! I saw this done at a truly chic furniture boutique in Norman 405 Imports. They had their pillows paired with a 1930's French style deco furniture setting, and I will be honest, it looked divine...I just don't think the hubby would have gone for it!

You also don't have to stick to just coffee sacks, there are some awesome potato sacks out there too!

Also, get creative! If you embroider or sew, embellish the design with your own artistic touch. This is also a cool idea for plain burlap that you want to jazz up! Add ribbons, buttons, charms or whatever you want to make your art item unique to you.

If you really want bang for your buck, take your sack and cut it down its side seams. This way you can "frame" the side with a graphic design or make a pillow out of it, and you still have an entirely plain piece of burlap to deck out however you want. Talk about two cool ideas for one!

What are some of the things you have done with coffee/potato sacks?