I thought I would just give you an update on how I got on with my first attempt at working with a tea bag.
Those of you that saw my last post will know that I left the fruit tea bag to dry out overnight. When it was dry I removed the staple and emptied out the tea and carefully opened out the tea bag.
There it was all ready to be worked on and the tea looked good to. I'm sure you could use that in some way too. But for now I was just concentrating on the bag itself.
Not ever having used a tea bags before (apart from making a cup of tea of course) I thought I would hold back on making pages for my little book until I was a bit more familiar with them. So I sat there looking at the flattened out tea bag and wondered where to start. I got out my stamps and ink pad and stamped a couple of images onto the tea bag. I know, from reading artists blogs that you can use gel medium to seal them and to adhere them onto paper and fabric, but as I am just starting out working in mixed media, gel medium is one of the many things on my shopping list. So I used what I had to hand which was pva glue.
Well it turned out to be a mistake as it turned the lovely pink colour into GREEN. Well you learn by your mistakes. I'm not sure whether it would effect the colour if it had been brown tea but needless to say gel medium has now gone to the top of my shopping list.
I was going to post a pic to show you how it turned out but the camera wouldn't pick up the green. So that's were I am with that at the moment but I'm going to steep a few more bags and have a little more practice. When I get something worth sharing I will let you know.
Anyway it wasn't all bad the highlight of my day, today, was a little robin in my front garden.
I love robins, they remind me of my Mum.
Bye for now x
What a shame about the tea bag. Better luck next time.
ReplyDeleteLovely picture of the Robin :0)
Heyyyy Fuzzie, you've got your blog back! Ha-le-lu-jah!!! Great to see you back in Blogland where you belong.
ReplyDeleteWell, a green teabag is something different, I suppose! Remember, there are no mistakes, only challenges, and I am sure you will make something lovely with it! I started saving some ordinary tea ones recently, but because we both like really weak tea, and China tea at that, they aren't very dark in colour. I still think I'll use them, though. If you visit Colouricious, there's a fabulous video on there with machine embroidery on tea bags, making a tea cosy, which is stunning.
I couldn't live without gel mediums. They are my most awesome discovery, I think. An indispensible item in your arsenal, and definitely something on my list of Desert Island Art Materials!
Thanks for your lovely comment, and thank goodness today I'm starting to feel half human again, enough to get my head round how much catching up I've got to do! The secret will be not to launch myself into it all too much and put myself back to square one again...
Hope you'll show us some tea bag pics soon, green notwithstanding.
Shoshi
I too have had to experiment with different products on tea bags. I do use gel and fluid medium on them, but both of these products will move the colour of the tea bags a bit. If you don't use a permanant ink (I use Staz On) when you stamp on it, the gel medium will smear your stamp and move the colour. Keep on trying, and I am sure you will come up with solution that you love and works for you.
ReplyDeleteKim