Primitive coffee cats.

Everyone, without exception, dreams of real miracles and fabulous surprises on New Year's Eve. And what could be better than receiving sincere congratulations and unexpected gifts? Of course, give them! Nothing beats a handmade gift.

When you pick up a cool or cute, seemingly simple thing, you understand: they were thinking about you long before the holiday. After all, searching for an idea, mastering the basics of technology, an original idea - all this takes time. And love.

One of these charming fragrant New Year's surprises, created with your own hands and almost animated, can be a coffee toy - for the Christmas tree or just as a gift. And on the eve of 2020, even the most ardent rodent haters will smile when they pick up an amazingly fragrant, cute coffee rat, a mouse-shaped toy.

Coffee shop - what is it?

This type of needlework is also called attic toys for their naive, slightly shabby appearance, as if the trinket was dug up on the mezzanine of a grandmother’s dowry. In fact, they are sewn from coarse calico using primitive patterns, just like in the old days, and are artificially aged using instant coffee with the addition of cinnamon and vanilla.

After such processing and baking in the oven, coffee toys acquire a special gingerbread image, while emitting a wonderful coffee aroma. And if there are several gingerbread cookies on the table, then the smells will tell even all the neighbors: the holiday has already come to this house.

A coffee toy is:

• original interior decoration – brownie, snowman, owl;
• a funny New Year's gift for kids - a mouse, horse, bear or kitten;
• a romantic declaration of love - a heart with an inscription or an angel (seals have been a trend in recent years);
• for an event in the classroom - funny kittens, mice, dogs - any animal that carries a positive charge, or, as teenagers say, a positive person;
• a surprise made independently for grandparents: a symbol of the year or a charming face with wishes for long life and health.

With his own hands, even a beginner, using sketches or patterns from the Internet, will make a present in the form of an amulet or a Christmas tree decoration, a Christmas angel or an animal from the eastern horoscope. The first experience is just the start for a creative person.

Knowing the preferences, interests of loved ones and friends, it is so easy to please everyone. Whether it is an elegant doll in a lace dress and pantaloons or a primitive bear - in any case, such a handmade New Year's gift will not fail to cause a storm of delight after emerging from the gift wrapping. And anticipating the reaction of the recipient, it is difficult not to be inspired to work, because in addition to natural fabric, threads and other little things, it requires a good mood.

All the secrets of making coffee toys for beginners

A separate group of handmade toys includes coffee pots - funny aromatic figures that make you smile. What is this hobby and how to master it?

Do you like to treat yourself to a cup of aromatic coffee with fresh homemade cakes? Then you will definitely love delicious-smelling coffee toys. They are easy to make, even the manufacturing process itself will bring a lot of pleasure, not to mention the finished products. Oh, how the finished toys smell! Coffee, cinnamon, vanilla. However, get to work, you can choose your favorite scent yourself.

1. Coffee toys - what are they?
2. What you need for work
3. The most important thing is the coffee solution
4. Your first coffee toy
5. Step-by-step master classes with photo instructions

Coffee toys - what are they?

Before you dive into a new trendy hobby, it's worth finding out what it is. Coffee toys are a special type of primitive handmade toys. The fabric and filling of the craft are impregnated with natural aromas, and the surface is painted, decorated with decoupage or lace.

Coffee toys of the simplest and most stylized shapes look good. These are all kinds of cats, owls, hearts. If a coffee pot is intended for a gift, wishes or just kind words are often written on it. It’s impossible to look at such cute crafts without smiling, that’s why they have another name – positive ones.

What you need for work

The most important thing you should stock up on is a little patience and a good mood. Without these components, you shouldn’t get to work, because coffee pots should be charged only with positive energy. In addition you will need:

• Natural white fabric - linen, calico. Chintz won't work, it's too thin. Artificial fabrics and knitwear are strictly not suitable.
• Sintepon for filling a coffee toy.
• PVA glue, any instant coffee, your favorite spices.
• Threads, acrylic paints, napkins for decoupage.
• A bowl for soaking fabric, a brush, scissors, a simple pencil, paper for a pattern.

The most important thing is the coffee solution

You can choose a wide variety of shapes for future crafts, draw and write whatever you want on them. One thing will remain unchanged - the solution for coffee toys. Thanks to it, crafts acquire most of their aroma and hold their shape well.

The solution is prepared according to the following recipe :

1. Pour 2 teaspoons or 2 sticks of instant black coffee into a bowl. Please note that 3 in 1 coffee will not work here, you need black coffee.
2. Add 0.5 teaspoon of vanillin. Do not confuse with vanilla sugar. If sugar gets into the solution, the finished toy will be sticky and unsightly. So look for regular vanillin.
3. Pour 0.5 cups of boiling water over the coffee and vanilla and stir.
4. Pour 2 teaspoons of PVA glue into the solution and mix.
5. Strain the finished solution through gauze or cotton wool. If this is not done, random lumps can ruin the entire appearance of the toy. The solution is ready, it’s time to start making the coffee pot.

Your first coffee toy

It's time to figure out how to make a coffee toy. First you need to figure out what it will be. Then draw the idea on a piece of paper and cut it out. You can use ready-made patterns. Start with the simplest possible forms. For example, from an oval with protrusions at the top, you can end up with a cat or an owl.

Now start creating:

1. Using a pattern, cut out two parts of the future toy from the fabric. To do this, fold the fabric in half, trace the contours of the pattern and cut, leaving approximately 0.5 cm of seam allowance.
2. Stitch or stitch the blanks by hand, leaving a hole for turning and subsequent stuffing. Turn the toy inside out.
3. Now the solution you prepared will come in handy. Place your workpieces in a bowl with a warm solution and leave them to soak for 15-20 minutes. At this time, you can go drink a cup of coffee with foam, not forgetting to check that the fabric is evenly covered with the solution.
4. Remove the pieces from the bowl, lightly squeeze and straighten. Now arm yourself with a hairdryer and dry it properly. You can put them on the radiator, but then be prepared that the heater will have to be washed to remove brown stains.
5. After drying, you will end up with unpresentable-looking crumpled rags in your hands. Straighten them again and iron them with an iron. Now it’s another thing, the rags have become like toys.
6. Prepare spices - cinnamon, ground cloves, ginger, and padding polyester. Start carefully filling your coffee pot. It is convenient to push the filler with a pencil or stick to get into all the nooks and crannies.
7. While stuffing, gradually add the spice mixture inside. In total, one craft should take approximately 0.5 teaspoon of the spicy mixture. After stuffing, sew up the hole.
8. Now you can show your imagination and decorate your craft as your heart desires. This can be painting with acrylic paints, satin stitch or cross stitch embroidery, decoupage, decoration with beads, lace, beads. Crafts in the shape of animals are best painted with paints, depicting funny faces on the front side, and leaving space for inscriptions on the back.

If you decide to decorate the toy with decoupage, keep in mind that the pattern will be difficult to see on a brown background. Therefore, first cover the area with a layer of white acrylic paint and after that do decoupage.

Step-by-step master classes with photo instructions

To make it easier for you to understand the intricacies of making coffee pots, go to master classes with step-by-step photos. Please note that in some instructions, the coffee solution is used to saturate the already stuffed workpiece using a brush.

In this case, you need to dry the entire toy, but the aroma gets onto the padding polyester. Each needlewoman has her own way! Try different ways.

Cute bear in a vest

Funny pig instead of a postcard

Heart with lace

Hedgehog in the fog

Sleepy owl

This hobby is suitable for girls and women of all ages; you can do it with your children, spending pleasant family evenings. The aroma hobby is perfect for the list of hobbies for retirees. Be sure to try to make at least a symbolic pillow or heart using this simple technology.

Making funny coffee mugs can even be turned into extra income. If not only you and your loved ones like toys, try making them for sale. You can't sew much by hand, so a sewing machine and sewing skills will come in handy.

And if you also have artistic skills, exclusive painted toys will definitely sell well. Of course, such a hobby cannot become your main income, but you will definitely earn money from coffee! Author: Kirichek Oksana.

How to create a small coffee miracle as a gift

As we have already said, to make such a New Year's gift with your own hands you will need ordinary calico, padding polyester, sewing supplies, acrylic paints, a cup of coffee and a little patience. We look at simple patterns at the end of this article or find a sketch on the Internet.

For the simplest coffee toys like hearts, Christmas trees, fat coffee cats or funny soft dogs, an artist’s gift is not needed. One pattern at a time, using one template, novice creators of masterpieces make toys with different cute faces. This is how even seals sewn according to a standard pattern become unique. After all, handmade crafts are always exclusive.

Master class on making a coffee cat

Have you found a suitable idea and prepared material with tools? Let's get started! Don't be afraid that it will be primitive. The main advantages of attic toys are extreme simplicity, charm, and a positive message.

The step-by-step recipe for making coffee cats looks like this:

1. Redraw the pattern onto the fabric twice for the front and back.

2. We cut out and then sew together all the details of our future character.

3. We fill it tightly with padding polyester, periodically add aromatic additives - cinnamon, ground coffee, something else that you yourself love or the recipient who will receive your creation as a gift adores.

4. We sew up the holes with a hidden seam.

The sewing is done. The next stage of work is painting the coffee toy. Prepare a solution for tinting fabric:

• pour a couple of spoons of instant coffee into a glass of boiling water;
• a little cinnamon powder;
• a pinch of vanillin (but not vanilla sugar!)
• spoon of cocoa;
• a couple of spoons of PVA glue.

To prevent the coloring of the workpiece from causing problems with clots or lumps sticking to the tool or fabric, filter the solution. The old method will do - squeeze it through gauze.

To apply the “paint” use a brush or small sponge. Better yet, just soak the shreds in the prepared mixture for a quarter of an hour before sewing, and then dry, straighten, and iron. And then pick up the needle and stuffing. Or soak already sewn pieces, but not yet stuffed, by soaking them. With experience, everyone develops their own step-by-step methodology.

Bringing coffee beauty

Below are a few more important steps:

1. To tint the seams, you need to prepare a mixture of dry coffee and PVA glue. After the toy is painted, coffee-glue “putty” is applied in the right places or along the contour of the figure with a brush to create the authenticity of the toy’s vintage origin.
2. The figures are hung on the grill and placed in a preheated oven for 15 minutes. You can dry coffee toys near the radiator; it is important that the craft and the hot device do not come into contact, otherwise the coloring will be spotty, uneven, and the heating radiator will have to be washed. In addition, professional doll makers claim that when baked, the spicy-coffee aroma of toys lasts much longer, filling the apartment with the atmosphere of a home coffee shop.
3. After the “carcass” has dried, if the stains are too obvious, you can apply another layer of coffee, and then send it to dry again.
4. Using fine sandpaper, use light circular movements to rub over too contrasting transitions on the seams of the product.

Let's start decorating our New Year's handicrafts.

Finishing touches - to taste

The face of a coffee doll, a cat, a rat, or anything else you like, is painted with acrylic paints; you can buy it and glue on the eyes. The hairstyle is made from wool yarn for knitting, and the corresponding outfit is a matter of your imagination and sewing skills. If the clothes turn out to be too new, so as not to create dissonance, you already know how to “age” them - using the same coffee-cinnamon mixture.

On the belly or back of a fat cat or a New Year's rat, you can write words that will be important or simply cheer you up. It could even be a quote from a poem. The main thing is that the text also brings joy.

See how the process looks step by step in this video:

When decorating coffee toys intended to act as Christmas tree decorations, your imagination is limited solely by your own taste. Look lovely on gingerbread hearts, Christmas trees and houses:

• vintage lace;
• whole coffee beans;
• bugles;
• buttons,
• ribbons and other New Year's tinsel, which can be easily attached to the toy with glue.

For coffee toys, anything that has been accumulating for years in the corners of cabinets and boxes is suitable. Look at photos of adorable mice and rats - get ideas and get inspired.

Funny, touching coffee toys cannot leave anyone indifferent. Such homemade New Year's gifts with a taste of coffee and vanilla-cinnamon aroma will fit perfectly into the festive surroundings and will definitely lift the spirits of your guests and family members.

And finally, a video with a detailed description of three options (including a coffee mouse) for making a New Year’s rat:

Coffee cats - master class

Coffee toys, so-called primitives, are an excellent gift and an almost universal accessory that will always be in its place.

Even a child can make them with his own hands, for which it is enough to study one master class. Coffee cats, or coffee cats, as you like, are perhaps the most popular flavored toys. After all, to give someone such a gift, all you need is a little fabric and imagination - in order to figure out what funny inscriptions to decorate the souvenir with.

Materials and patterns

However, to complete the master class, you will need one more thing:

• patterns
• coffee (ground or instant, it doesn’t matter), ground cinnamon and vanilla
• cotton wool, padding polyester or holofiber to make our coffee cats plump and cute
• paints and brushes to decorate cats with inscriptions and draw their faces

It is not for nothing that such toys are called “primitives”, because their outlines resemble an ingenuous child’s drawing that the child made with his own hands.

Click on the image below to see it in full size and save it to yourself.

Operating procedure

We transfer the pattern details onto the fabric. By the way, they should be more or less dense - linen, calico. So that our coffee cats keep their shape well and do not fall.

We cut out the parts, not forgetting to leave room for allowances, then carefully steam the fabrics with an iron with our own hands. This procedure must not be neglected, otherwise the toys will turn out less neat than we would like.

Next, you need to stitch the pattern pieces together, leaving a gap for stuffing the toy with holofiber or cotton wool.

After the body is sewn, we fill it with filler with our own hands. By the way, this can be done using a regular pencil or other oblong object.

So, the process has come to the most exciting stage: preparing the coffee mixture. It is from this that the toys will acquire a magnificent delicate color and will exude an incredible aroma.

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Pour 2-3 teaspoons of coffee, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, and a bag of vanilla into a metal cup. Pour boiling water over this mixture and put it on the stove to cook. As soon as it starts to bubble, remove from heat and strain.

Next, we paint the toys with this composition. It is best to use a wide soft brush for this.

IMPORTANT: If you need lighter coffee cats, then the body of the toy can be painted in one layer and dried with a hairdryer. If a darker shade is appropriate, then you need to paint it twice.

Drying toys

There are several options:

1. If gifts need to be made as quickly as possible, then you need to “bake” the cats in the oven. They dry out in half an hour. Just don’t overdo it, otherwise the coffee cats will turn out burnt!
2. You can dry such toys with a hairdryer very quickly (5-10 minutes).
3. You can hang toys by a string on the balcony, or just in the room. But this drying takes a long time, about overnight.

Coloring

Now let's start creating the muzzle !

Even a child can paint their faces and make coffee cats look like real ones. By the way, if you are not very friendly with paints, then you can just take multi-colored markers. On a dry surface they will perfectly draw lines. It’s easy to draw – eyes, mustache, smile, eyebrows.

You can decorate the cat's body with inscriptions. Of course, it all depends on who your coffee cats are for. If for yourself, then write some optimistic slogan on their tummy.

If you are planning to make a gift for someone, then you cannot do without imagination. The main thing to remember is that the surface is limited, and you probably shouldn’t paint the whole cat.

Coffee cats, first of all, should still please the eye with pleasant outlines and funny faces. And, of course, a great aroma. And even though these toys are so-called primitives, they will bring a lot of joy.

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Our master class is over! Have fun with your crafting!

Simple patterns for coffee toys

If you are inspired and want to make these cuties with your own hands, we have prepared several patterns for the simplest mice, rats and cats.

Coffee shops are a hobby for all occasions and forever.

Soboleva Tatyana