Tous Les Jours - A Denver Coffee Adventure

Coffee Date and Research?…

You might be wondering why coffee and comics? Other than enjoying a nice cup of coffee in the morning with a comic book, opening a coffee and comic shop is something I’d like to do in the near future. It’s always a great time going to a comic shop and browsing all the comics, figurines and more; but a lot of the time after I make my purchase I want to sit down and read them. However all comic shops are cramped spaces that are packed to the ceilings with products. Even the Mile High Comics in Denver that is an entire warehouse is packed to the brim and doesn’t offer any seating. With three comic shops being 15-25 minutes away from me, I end up going home to read them instead of going to another establishment to sit and read. Now a coffee and comic shop takes care of that problem by not only providing a space to sit and relax but also providing food and beverages to pair with your comic purchase.

Starbucks plus many other national and global brands have some cities and towns in the palm of their hand by having so many locations and beating out local competition. For instance I live about 20 mins outside of Denver and there are maybe one or two “mom and pop” coffee shops as opposed to multiple Starbucks, Dutch Bros, Caribou Coffee and Ziggy’s Coffee, all national chains. In the 5 years I’ve been living in Colorado I’ve been to Dutch Bros once and Starbucks a few times. I’ve never been to Caribou Coffee or Ziggy’s, but anytime I’ve gone to Starbucks, or driven by the other coffee shops, they’re either empty or just have a drive-thru going.

My wife and I’s order today at Tous Les Jours.

That brings me to the next part of this which is going on coffee adventures with my wife. Before getting into the coffee shop business, we want to do our due diligence and research what makes coffee shops successful in the Denver area and surrounding suburbs. Last week we went to a coffee shop called Sweet Bloom that was really nice but we felt out of place. It seemed like everyone sitting there was on a laptop and there were only a few tables that offered seating for more than two people.

I had to try this, it was so light and fluffy and the cream was rich and tasted super fresh with bits of blueberry in it.

What we did like was the pastries so today I wanted to see what was near us that offered breakfast pastries and I came across Tous Les Jours. This bakery and cafe is located less than 10 mins from our house, in fact once we got there we were thinking it’d be a nice bike ride someday. It is however part of a national chain but we wanted to give it a chance.

A very aesthetically pleasing bakery with a wide variety of pastry options. Savory and sweet, I hit the jackpot. There were so many different items to choose from I had to walk around and look at everything twice before choosing. Everything looked exceptional, freshly baked, fresh and vibrant fruit, it just looked perfect. My wife opted for a latte and almond croissant, I got a hot mocha, a blueberry cream cheese pastry and later went and got an apple filled pastry too.

This apple filled pastry was delicious, I could of eaten at least 4 more.

The hot mocha was delicious and didn’t seem as heavy or thick as opposed to Starbucks. I devoured my first pastry, the bread was so soft and fluffy, the cream filling had bits of blueberry, I finished it in under two minutes. Still hungry, I got an apple filled pastry that was also baked to perfection with a flaky crust and rich apple filling. They had quite a few food options and certainly a place we will be visiting again, especially to try out one of their smoothies. Highly recommend checking this place out if you’re ever in the Denver suburb area.

My hot mocha was very good, not scalding hot and features this little message on the up. Coffee time, refined.

Let's Make a Coffee & Comics Canvas Tote Bag

How to Customize a Canvas Tote Bag

I’ve had this blank tote bag sitting around the house for about 2 years now with the intention to put some type of design on it. Honestly I think the only reason we’ve kept this tote is because of Colorado law having stores charge for plastic bags. Originally I wanted to do something for our canna brand but could never think of a good enough idea. It wasn’t until recently that when I finished revising the Coffee & Comics logo that I was like, “Oh, this would be perfect.” All I really needed to do was create a jpeg with the logo to use with the projector. My projector was a cheap $40 projector from Amazon that I knew would work for this project. My plan was to lightly trace the logo on the wall with a chalk pencil, then take the bag down and fill it in with the marker on a table. Should be easy enough right?

The materials I used but not necessarily needed: old ass fabric markers that I bought a year ago and one of them was completely dried out, a black chalk pencil for outlining, a projector, push pins, tape, cardboard and a ruler.

I started off with trying to figure out how big I wanted the logo to be on the bag. On the computer I put a big and small logo on my artboard so I’d have two options to work with when lining it up on the bag. After I figured that out, I got some tape and placed it from left to right so I could line up the logo with the projector. Once you’re done with that you can place the bag or whatever you’re wanting to trace on up on the wall. What is important in this step is to make sure you can get the bag to lay flat against the wall while you pin it into place. A canvas tote bag is a bit stiff so getting any wrinkles and bumps prior to tracing is highly beneficial. Lining up the projector and focusing the image on the bag is probably the most difficult part. I propped my projector up on an extra tripod so I could place my image higher up on the wall and stand while I trace the logo instead of being crouched or bent over trying to do it low to the ground. 

Now comes the easy or fun part, tracing! Take your chalk pencil and start to outline the logo without pressing too hard on the bag. The benefit of using chalk is that the marker will cover it up but also is easier to remove in case you mess up. On this logo I wanted to make sure the superhero eyes and the coffee cup details don’t get lost with the marker bleeding past the edges, so be extra careful and give your outline a little bit of extra room for the marker. I set up my camera and took a few videos of me doing this, you can find it on my TikTok here. Be aware of where you are walking so as to not to knock over or move the projector once you’ve started or else it will be a pain in the butt to try and line it up again. 

Afterward once you are done outlining it chalk you can take it down and start filling in the logo with your marker or ink. So my markers are about a year or maybe even two years old, but I think this helped in my case as I didn’t have to worry about the marker bleeding. Take a piece of cardboard and stick it in the bag in case the markers bleed through the material and you don’t stain the opposite side. You don’t have to do this extra step but I used some spray glue on the cardboard to adhere to the back of the bag so it wouldn’t move around while filling in with the marker. If you have extra material I would recommend testing out your marker before you start on the final product. Depending on how wet your markers are, this will either be a long or short process. I had to go over the bag a few times to fill in all the little spaces of the material of the bag. In the end it came out better than I expected. This was just a practice run to see if I want to make a few of these to sell on my website. Not sure if I should use anything to “seal” it but if I find anything I will come back and update this post.

Next time I’m going to try different markers and maybe even try fabric paint instead. 

Need a quick run through? See below!

How to trace a design on a tote bag:

1. Create jpeg with logo to transfer onto projector

2. Tape a line across bag or whatever you’re using so you can line up logo

3. Hang bag on the wall with push pins, try to lay flat

4. Line up logo with projector on the bag

5. Trace with chalk pencil, careful on details

6. Remove from wall and place cardboard behind material

7. Fill in with marker

8. Stand back and admire your work