Adventures in Painting Glass

Hi, my name is Jen and I am detail-oriented. That's the polite term, anyway.

Today's post does have to do with a crafty endeavor, but it's not about yarn. It's not about beads. It's about coffee.

For Christmas I was looking at what I called "fancy coffee makers", since I'd decided I like the coffees with the foamy milk and the expensive price tags. It was a toss-up between the Tassimo and the Dolce Gusto. I chose the Dolce Gusto because it was sassy, cute and got better reviews. One of the perks of the machine is that you can control the strength of your beverage. Prefer it stronger? Shorten the brewing time. Like it weaker? Wait until it starts to look watery.

For a lot of people, this is a great feature. For me, it led to coffee anxiety. Sure, the packages told you how many ounces to brew to, but I don't happen to drink out of beakers. I was afraid I wasn't brewing to maximum potential. I'd brew until the beverage started to look watery, and maybe I didn't want watery! There had to be a better way.

I looked into writing on a coffee mug. I purchased a clear glass mug and was hoping I could just Sharpie all over it, but apparently that doesn't work. Crap. I went to Michaels and found paint pens which claimed to be dishwasher-resistant once you cooked your piece in the stove. Finally, I found a mL-marked flavor injector, since it seemed easier than trying to figure out 0.3 ounces. Then I carefully measured & injected the amount of necessary liquid for each drink I had into the mug and marked off the name/stage of the drink (some drinks have a milk component too).

It took a week, but I sucked up my fears and baked the mug in the oven yesterday and then put it in the dishwasher after it cooled. It made it out alive and I had a very tasty and spot-on mocha this morning.

Here is a shot of the mug post-dishwasher and pre-beverage.



Obviously it's not perfect. It was my first time using a paint pen on glass, and for me at least, there's a learning curve. Also, I did this later at night when I'm brain-dead, which explains why I wrote "hot/coffee/chocolate" next to "mocha" on the bottom.

Actually, it's a design feature. I'm revolutionizing punctuation, people.

The Dolce Gusto is a niche market, and for about 10 seconds I considered improving my skills and attempting to sell these, but then I realized I would probably get sued. Next time, I think I'll take off the names of each beverage and just mark off amounts in milliliters or ounces. That way it WILL be like drinking out of a beaker. You'd have to do the math, though. In the morning. Before coffee. I'm slightly evil.

But at least now my coffee anxiety is reduced ... at least until the caffeine kicks in.


P.S. I'm waiting for the science majors of the world to tell me that one fluid ounce of water weighs one regular ounce on the scale. I'm sure I could have made this ten times easier on myself. Please enlighten me. I went to school to read words.