Tea Bag and Vintage Photo ATCs

For several years, I have been experimenting with using dried, empty tea bags in my art. I used to print on them using stamps and white printmaking paint, but decided to see how using stencils would work with the white paint and teabags. The short story—great!

I started with some ATC blanks—I like the Art Canvas ATCs from USArtquest, which are lightweight and strong. I coated each blank with matte medium and gently placed the teabag on top. I pulled the bags carefully around the edges of the card, folding the corners so there would be no lumps or puckers, and wrapping them around the back.

The color of the teabags varies according to brewing time and type of tea. Ordinary tea gives a nice warm brown, and I love the Yogi tea called Muscle Recovery, which gives a pretty yellowish color. There are often happy accidents with staining on the folds that gives interesting texture to the bags.

I added an extra layer of matte medium on top of the bags—I was afraid that the wet paint might cause the bags to “grow” while I was stenciling, but the top coat of matte medium prevented any puckering or growth.

I tested three stencils: Balzer Flower Piecing, Balzer Deco Doily and Crafters Workshop Mini Damask. Two of three worked well, but the mini damask was so delicate that the thick white paint smeared and blobbed—most likely the fault of the sloppy artist more than the stencil. I wiped off the excess paint off the card and moved ahead anyway.

On the flower piecing card, I added a small vintage photo of my mother that had been output on printable cotton, and surrounded it with lyrics from of John Lennon’s “Instant Karma.”

For the doily stenciled ATC, I used the same photo and more Instant Karma lyrics, but arranged differently. For the ATC with the smeared stencil, I adhered a small image of my parent’s wedding photo (December 1945) with matte medium. The photo had been output in sepia tones on Extravorganza printable silk and was very delicate and sheer. I added a piece of lace at the bottom, and with a silver mini brad, attached a cross and an appropriate quote on love from a Yogi Tea hangtag.

 

Vintage Tiny Dancer Paper Doll

My Sunday art therapy seems to be paper doll making. Like collage, it uses up small but cherished scraps of paper and cloth and is unplanned...which I find enormously therapeutic.

For Tiny Dancer, I used several Graphics Fairy http://thegraphicsfairy.com/ elements: the head, sacred heart, body (using script from an antique letter) and shoes are all compliments of Karen at The Graphics Fairy. In Photoshop, I sized the pieces so they would fit my doll template and printed the elements on cardstock. I added some arms and polka dot legs (cut from the pages of Just Steampunk Magazine), cut them carefully, and attached with mini brads.

The skirt was made from a dried, used tea bag. I carefully opened the teabag, emptied out the tea, and printed  the little sheet, ecru paper with an assortment of Tibetan wooden stamps using white printmaking paint. I gathered the little printed teabag with a running stitch at the top, and pulled on the string until it was waist sized and looked like a tiny skirt. I then tied the strings in the back and added a few stitched at the waist to keep it from slipping off.

Winged Children ATCs for The Trodden Path

Well, I joined a new cyber art group. It was kind of accidental…an artist I know posted a photo of friend’s work to Facebook, which led me to The Trodden Path. http://thetroddenpath.ning.com/ Mostly it is a place to share and learn by taking classes, but it is also social. They recently had an ATC trade called “Winged Children.” I couldn’t resist that. I gathered up my old photos, paper scraps, paints, markers and file of Graphics Fairy  http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/images and got to work.

The top one is a Graphic Fairy angel.

I changed the face in Photoshop, printed it, cut it out, added color and paint and glued it to a background made from recycled teabags that were stamped and painted. The middle card has Graphic Fairy butterfly wings, the stamped background, and words I try to live by: Love what you do; do what you love. Any guess as to who the little blonde-headed girl is?

The bottom card uses yet more Graphic Fairy images for the wings and little girl. I added color to the wings, cut my own dress out of one of my fabric designs and added an OM stamp.

Shabby Chic Angel Tag Tutorial

Just in time for the holidays, I made a batch of “Shabby Chic” angel tags. The shabby effect is achieved with several techniques—using recycled tea bags for the background, unevenly applying white printmaking paint to the tea bags, and using an intentionally torn effect on the angel images. The shabbiness is contrasted with the chicness of delicate, sheer laces and gossamer pastel ribbon trim.

Here’s how I made the tags:

1-use a commercial tag as a base (I got mine at Staples), or cut your own from a beige, smooth poster weight paper.

2-take dried tea bags, carefully open them, empty out the tea, and flatten. The uneven tea stains give a nice aged look. Do not use damp tea bags—they will rip. Any kind of tea is fine, but take the bags out before you add sugar, lemon or milk.

3-select a variety of stamps—lacey textures work well but any stamp will do. French fleur de lis or English classic designs also make great 'faux lace.'

4-apply white printmaking paint to the stamps. You can experiment and mix the patterns.

5-drape the tea bag over the stamp and press lightly, then carefully remove the tea bag and repeat until it is all covered. You can get usually get two or more images from each paint application. I call the painted teabags ‘faux lace.’ Depending on the size of the tea bag, you may need several for each tag. Printmaking paint works best, but you can use any white paint, just be sure to clean the stamps carefully when you are done so they don’t get paint stuck in the crevices. Printmaking paint works well because it stays wet longer than regular paint, which prevents it from drying on your stamp.

6-when the painted tea bags have dried, glue them to the commercial tag, covering the base completely. It is okay to layer the tea bags or rip little pieces and fill in where necessary to get complete coverage.

7-select a center image and glue to tag—I used some angels from The Graphics Fairy. http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

8-add strips of lace—thin, sheer laces work well. Thicker laces work better on the edges since they will obscure the subtle textures and colors of the tea bags and ‘faux lace.’ These laces are from M&J Trim.http://www.mjtrim.com/

9-if desired, add a little chalk pastel to enhance the center image, and also to soften the background color.

10-add a bow of shimmery ribbon at the top, and some extra lace or rick-rack at the bottom.

Well, Hello Dolly…I’m in Just Steampunk, Volume 2!

If I were someone who follows numerology or plays lotto, I’d think there was some meaning to two dates—1/11/12 and 11/1/12. The first date is when I posted to my blog about the art paper dolls I made for the Roses on My Table group’s steampunk paper doll trade. The second date is when I opened my mailbox and found a complimentary copy of Just Steampunk, vol. 2, with my dolls on page 101 of the magazine.

Several months ago I sent an email to the magazine with some jpegs of the dolls that I kept for myself. (I made five, traded two and kept three.) I hadn’t heard one way or another about the dolls other than getting a polite response thanking me for my submission. So, I was jumping up and down, twirling and squealing when I opened to page 101 and found a full page with my three steampunk dolls!

One of the dolls (top photo, doll on the left) is particularly symbolic. Back in 2007 I wrote an article in Cloth Paper Scissors called “Painting Out the Panic.” One of the pieces used to illustrate the article is a figure I call “Broken Chakra Girl.” BCG symbolized my struggle with panic disorder, particularly the fifth (throat) chakra. My anxiety would cause my throat to constrict and I wouldn’t be able to speak. I also got frequent sore throats at the time.

 I used BCG’s face for one of these dolls, cut her hair, gave her a top hat, changed the color of the turquoise throat design to match her steampunk style, and made her neck a normal length. Somehow the steampunk version represents healing, with her strong, mechanical, shiny body and bold stance. Her green broken heart is no longer exposed, and is protected by her steampunk armor.

All of the dolls are made with original faces that I drew or painted. The bodies are made of painted, recycled coffee filters, painted and stamped recycled tea bags adhered to fabric, or paper. The metal textured legs and arms are cut paper from Just Steampunk, volume 1. The body with the corset and the clockworks are also cut paper from the first issue. The body parts are attached with tiny brads so they can be posed and played with.

I would like to extend a special thank you to Karen at The Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ for the use of her vintage images of butterfly wings and top hats; to Zinnia at Roses on My Table for creating such a wonderful online art community; and to JoAnn at Roses on My Table for running such a great group. http://rosesonmytable.ning.com/

Art Tag Using Vintage Advertising Images

There is a wonderful site called The Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ where all kinds of vintage images are available for free. New images are posted daily, and you can also search the site by category to find almost anything, from apples to zebras. I have discovered that I have a penchant for vintage advertising images. I love the antique graphics and fonts and colors. I recently made a 12" x 12" collage in photoshop with some of my favorites. After I printed it out on cardstock (I reduced it to 8x8 to print and flipped the image so that there was a little extra 3x8 piece at the bottom of the page) I decided to cut it up and make art tags. I overprinted the vintage ads with white paint on some of my own handcarved stamps, and also added some recycled teabag 'lace' that I made by printing white on used, dry, empty teabags. Last, I added some extra color in spots with Derwent inktense pencils and blocks to enhance the color and give more of an aged look. I am posting the "before" piece, the uncut collage as I arranged it in photoshop, for comparison. Although I love the vintage images just as they are, I knew I needed to do something to make them uniquely mine. I really love stamping and printmaking, so overprinting the vintage images seemed to be a way to keep the antique look, yet soften it. The use of the teabags over the collage softened the look and the faux lace teabags added a bit of romance. After I cut the tags to the size I wanted, I glued them to commercial tags for strength. There were some little pieces left, so I was able to make a few more tags than I expected by collaging the leftover pieces into some new tags.

What Color is Rain?

For our Arts In The Cards April ATC theme, the color prompt was rain. Rain? Rain is clear isn't it? So how could I interpret rain as a color? I thought of rainwater collecting in a jar on the back porch when I was a child; my mother ran out with a big pot every time it rained so she would have water for her steam iron. Our well-water was so full of minerals that it clogged the iron. Usually the rainwater she collected was clear, but sometimes rain looks light blue or gray or or even yellowish brown.

I went back and forth trying to decide between pale aqua and ecru for rain, and finally gave up and did half and half. I used recycled tea bags, and randomly printed two blocks--one a paisley Tibetan woodblock and one my own hand-carved tulip--with white screenprinting ink. I mounted some of the printed teabags on white board, and for some I put an underlay of a pale aqua silky fabric, then the printed teabag. The finishing touches were a strip of very sheer lace and pale aqua chalk accent.

The paisley shape, quite accidentally, reminded me of a large raindrop, and the tulip print reminded me of the plants that grow from the rain. I tried to convey the clearness of summer rain by the subtlety of the colors and sheerness of the teabags and lace, and the brownish stains on the teabags reminded me of the minerals that are in rainwater.

If you want to see more interpretations of "rain" go to: http://artsinthecards.blogspot.com/

Faux Lace from Recycled Tea Bags

I have been saving tea bags and coffee filters for quite a while. I often adhere them to a big piece of fabric or paper, then stamp over them with my handcarved blocks. As I was silkscreening some small art-o-mat pieces last week, it occurred to me to try printing on the teabags.

I was inspired by Canadian mixed-media artist Deborah Burnahm's work. Her printmaking and painting has an ethereal quality that I admire. Some of her work has a very subtle, imperfect-on-purpose white lace in the background which adds depth and mystery. [Deborah's Esty shop is called Land of Nod Studios]

I grabbed some white printmaking paint and applied it to my own stamps. The first few attempts were awkward; the printed image was uneven and incomplete. I decided to try draping the teabag over the painted stamp and pressing gently to be sure the image transferred. The result was just what I wanted.

I stayed up until midnight playing with my ecru paper and white paint. I used two stamps: one was my own handcarved swirly tulip, and the other, a Tibetan carved wood paisley that I purchased at a little shop in New York's East Village.

At midnight, I snapped a quick photo, then emailed it to myself. The light was bad, but for a change the bad light gave it an interesting sepia color and made it look aged.

On my lunch hour, I played with the photo, and used it as a background, then photoshopped in two beautiful images from The Graphics Fairy, http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com, for some romantic tags. I used words from a vintage French sign and a beautiful antique rose.

This weekend I used the stamped coffee and tea paper to make atcs. I glued the printed teabags to a cardboard atc base with PPA [perfect paper adhesive] and added a touch of lace that I found at M&J Trim to finish it off.

Here is a quick step-by-step on my printed tea bag lace:
1-save tea bags and let them completely dry out. It is best if you pull them out of the hot water before adding any sugar, milk or lemon...otherwise you will have a sticky mess and get holes when you try to use them.
2-carefully remove the staple and tag, and empty out the bag; then carefully open the teabag into one small sheet of paper. I love the uneven color that results.
3-take your favorite stamp [a lacy or floral one works well] and apply white acryllic paint.
4-drape your teabag over the stamp and gently press down. Remove carefully, and you should have a complete image.
5-repeat randomly. Try using an assortment of stamps. Also, the print does not have to be perfect; it adds depth when they are uneven or incomplete.