It’s not often I get a chance to make something special for my dad, but I got to make him two things to give him when he came to visit us last week. He has many interests and passions, but his roots are in farming and gardening. Eight or so years ago he finally returned to his home state of Minnesota after years of staying in Pennsylvania until my brother and I were fully grown. He sends us videos of his tractors and his progress on his garden, and he has chickens! With his chickens comes the best tasting eggs. Farm fresh really makes a world of difference!

First I picked up one of these egg aprons I have been seeing on Facebook. I felt that a custom one would be nice for the daily egg collection process.

I wanted to make a tumbler to illustrate his passion. I knew I wanted to use alcohol inks to get a variety of color and texture, and they are so easy to get a watercolor look with. I started off making my own alcohol inks, then layered the inks and colors on the cup with several layers of epoxy. I started with a white cup, and used lime green, green, cyan, teal, and indigo inks.

I added a tree with vinyl, and used silver foil to add “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.” I finished it off with Grandpa down the side.

Here is the first layer of inks:

while it was spinning:and the finished project: