Hello All!

This is my first Instructable and I was looking to create something unique with coffee. My initial idea was a bio-plastic, a wood stain, or a cup made of coffee grounds similar to the products that the company Kaffeeform makes. After days of researching I found a post on kidscrafty.com that explained how to make self hardening clay from flour. I Altered the recipe a bit and added some new ingredients like coffee to make Coffee Clay.

Coffee Clay is perfect for small arts and crafts projects. You can mold them into pretty much anything, like Play-Doh, and when they harden you can paint or draw on them if you want to!

The best part is that its an easy project that is non-toxic if you plan on working on this with small children around. I wouldn't taste one of these things though I'm pretty sure it taste awful.

Supplies

1 cup of All-Purpose Flour
cup Dry Coffee Grounds
1/3 cup of Salt
1/2 cup of Coffee or Water
Mixing bowl
Parchment paper
Glove (optional)
Casting mold (optional)

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

The materials used in this project are pretty standard find in most house holds.

As for the coffee grounds you can either use them straight from the container that you bought them from or you can maker yourself a few cups of coffee first and then recycle those grounds into your project. Just make sure if you are using recycled coffee grounds that they are completely dried.

A glove is optional but nice to have if you don't want your hands to get dirty.

Step 2: Mix Your Dry Ingrediants

Super easy step.

All you need to do is pour the all of the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and thoroughly mix the ingredients until homogeneous.

You can use a spoon for this step but I just did it by hand.

Step 3: Mixing in the Coffee or Water

Pour your coffee or water into the mixing bowl slowly while mixing. Continue mixing until you start to form a ball.

There shouldn't be any of your mix left in the bowl afterwards. The texture and consistency of your coffee clay will feel like dough.

If you used to much Coffee or water your mix will look soupy after mixing thoroughly. If you used too much mix then you will have a lot of the dry mix left in the bowl.

Step 4: Kneading the Clay

Sprinkle a little flour on your parchment paper. Take your coffee clay out of the mixing bowl and place it on your floured working surface. It might help to sprinkle a little flour on top of your ball of clay.

This part is the most important. Knead your clay until your able to hold it in your hand without any of the clay getting stuck to your hand. When your done kneading it should feel like bread dough.

keep in mind that it will be a little sticky and soft to the touch.

Step 5: And Your Done

At this point you have made your Coffee clay and its time to get creative with what you want to make with it.

Step 6: Use As Much As You Need

I cut my coffee clay ball into three parts and tried to make some thing from all three pieces.

You don't have to physically cut it you can just tear the pieces off with your hands.

For the pieces that you don't use you can stick them inside a plastic bag and store them in the fridge for a few days and use them later.

Step 7: Be Creative

The best part about the coffee clay is that its similar to Play-Doh. You can shape and mold it into anything that you like. You can use every day household products as molds as well just make sure that the object is non-stick like silicone or you put flour the surface of the object before using it as a mold. This prevents sticking.

As one of the pictures suggest I tried making a cup from using the bottom half of an empty sprite can.