I have been tea dying fabric for about 30 years now, so I got a wild hair and decided to try it on some of my tags. Here are some photos of how I did it and the results
I used some ready made tags from the office store, I cut a few out of SU cardstock with a die cut and my big shot
I used 2 cheap tea bags ( we do NOT drink tea or coffee I only keep it for dying fabric and now paper! lol)
This is an 8 cup measurer with water in it in the microwave because I didn't want to wait for it to boil on the stove- DO NOT put your tea bags in the microwave the tiny staple will freak out your microwave and start a fire!
Here are the tea bags "steeping" in the water
and here is the water after 30 minutes
45 minutes
after an hour I put in the tags
and I always get my hands in the water to swish things around!
After an hour in the tea water, I removed them and realized that next time I will use instant coffee instead of the tea for a more dramatic effect. as you can see in the last photo the tags come out flat but I let them dry for about 12 minutes and then crumpled them for this effect. If you leave them longer than an hour the paper starts to seperate and get mushy.
I like the crumpled look, it is going to be awesome when I ink these and distress them more and add smooch spray! I will probably flatten them a bit too after I distress them so they lay better on my projects.
I am pleased with the results and will try instant coffee next time so that they come out darker!
Have fun dying some tags. I would love to see what you create with them!
Comments