Tea Craft Tuesday: Polymer Clay Tea Leaf Pendants

Not long ago, I saw a fellow tea blogger wearing a tea leaf necklace that I adore. So I decided to try and make one myself.  Here below are simple instructions on how to create your own tea leaf pendants. You can wear them on the chain or cord of your choice.

Materials Needed:
-Sculpey III polymer clay in leaf green color
-rolling pin
-leaf-shaped cookie cutter
-knife
-fresh camellia leaves
-cocktail straw
-cookie sheet lined with parchment paper
-oven
-copper-colored metallic acrylic paint
-one jump ring for each leaf

Directions:
1) Soften the polymer clay by kneading it in your hands.
2) Roll out a thin sheet of the polymer clay using the rolling pin
3) Cut out leaf shapes with the cookie cutter.
4) Press each leaf shape between two fresh camellia leaves. Remove fresh leaves.
5) Trim edges using the knife.
6) Punch a hole at the top of each leaf using a cocktail straw.
7) Place polymer clay leaves on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
8) Bake them according to package directions.
9) Remove from oven.
10) When cool, dab a bit of acrylic paint onto each leaf.  Rub off excess paint.
11) Once the paint is dry, attach a jump ring to the top of each leaf.

Enjoy this activity and share pictures once you have created your own tea leaf pendants!

Tea Craft Tuesday: Paper Camellia Sinensis

I made this floral arrangement a while back. The flowers and leaves are supposed to resemble those of the camellia sinensis plant. The contemporary container makes a nod to the blue and white china  that has long been popular in Europe and North America, as well as a nod to the clipper ships that played an important role in the 19th century tea trade.

To make the flowers and leaves of this arrangement, I used paper punches. I assembled the punched pieces on floral wire using the instructions in the book, Fanciful Paper Flowers by Sandra Evertson.

Tea Cup Fairy Gardens

I had such fun creating these tea cup fairy gardens this weekend.  I created most of the miniature elements from scratch, so the cost of putting them together was minimal.  I will give more detailed instructions here on Tuesday as a part of my series "Tea Craft Tuesdays."

Tea Cup Fairy Garden

Tea Cup Gnome Garden

Tea Cup Magic Garden

Eco Printing with Tea Leaves

A friend taught me a new art/ craft process today:  Eco Printing.  So of course I had to try this process with tea. I used fresh tea leaves that I had clipped from the tea bush in my mother's garden.  (My mother is wonderful with plants, so I  had given her a small live tea plant many years ago.  She has tended the plant all these years and now has it living in her beautiful garden.)

Here is how my eco printing with tea leaves turned out today.  You can enlarge each image by clicking on it.  The reddish-brown blobs are bits of gardenia flower.  You will also see a sassafras leaf tucked in among the tea leaves.

Christmas Eve DIY French Macaron Ornaments

Happy Christmas Eve! Just finished a craft project: French macaron ornaments made from bottle caps.  You can read about this project later today on my other blog, My Creativity Diary.  My family and I adore macarons, as they remind us of our trips to Paris and to Charleston, South Carolina.  We have bought macarons in both cities. So I made these macaron Christmas ornaments as a reminder of our vacations together.

Tea Craft Tuesday: Tea Bag Christmas Tree

This craft project idea has been around the web for a while now.  With a quick search, I found it here and here.  It is a cute idea, so I decided to give it a try myself. 

I did not have a great deal of time to work on this project, so I used a small, 6 inch tall foam cone as the base rather than opting for a larger cone as the base for the tree.  And indeed, I completed this project very quickly.

Materials used:
-6 inch foam cone
-individually wrapped tea bags (I chose red and green.)
-hot glue gun with glue sticks
-a scrap of ribbon to wrap around the top of the tree
-a small plastic star

Instructions:
1) Starting at the bottom of the tree, use your hot glue to glue tea bags around the base, flush with the bottom of the cone.  I first glued green bags and then glued red bags to overlap and cover the open spaces between the green bags.
2) Glue the next row of tea bags above that, overlapping the top of the row below.  Continue gluing on tea bags until you reach the top of the cone.
3) I had a gap around the top of my cone, so I covered it with a piece of red ribbon.
4) Next, stick a toothpick in the top center of the cone and add a finishing touch to the top.  This final element could be a star, a ribbon or any small and decorative item you have on hand.

My follow up thoughts:
The tea bags were a bit stiff and bulky to work with, so I wonder what it would look like to create this project with empty tea bag wrappers.  In this case, the tree would, of course, be only decorative.  But I really would not want to tear apart one of these trees to use the tea bags anyway!  Would you take apart one of these trees to use the teabags?  Thoughts?

Tea Stained Tea Shrine

Tea Craft Tuesday: Tea Bag Wrapper Flowers

I save the wrappers from tea bags that I use to brew tea.  I've done it for years, and now have quite a collection.  I use them in collages, and was not sure what else to do with them until one day when I got the idea of using them to make paper flowers. I searched out instructions in a book that was on my bookshelf, Fanciful Paper Flowers: Creative Techniques for Crafting an Enchanted Garden, by Sandra Evertson.  I learned the structure of making these paper flowers from this book. It really is a wonderful book that is full of fun ideas and beautiful illustrations.

Above you see flowers created with two different types of tea bag wrappers.  The pink ones are made with foil-lined wrappers.  The lavender, white, and yellow flowers in the teapot are made with paper wrapper.  I prefer the look and malleability of the foil-lined wrappers.  But both types of wrappers will work.

 

If you want to give this project a try, I suggest that you buy the thick material flower-shaped punch by Fiskars.  I believe I found mine at JoAnne's. Regular flower punches will work.  But I punch through both layers of foil/paper at the same time, so the two layers of the tea bag wrapper tend to get stuck in regular punches.

I guess the only technical part of this project that is not obvious from the photos is how to attach the wire floral stem to the flower.  Here are basic instructions.

1) Punch a cardboard circle from card stock or lightweight cardboard.

2) Glue this circle to the back of the flower that you have created.

3) Take your floral stem and bend it into a small spiral at one end.

4) Glue the wire spiral to the cardboard circle on the back of your flower.

5) Bend the wire to orient the face of the flower in whatever direction you like.

Voila!  You have a flower on a stem that is ready for a vase or a floral arrangement anchored into floral foam.

Tea Craft Tuesday: Silver Chalkboard

This sort of project has been around the blogosphere for a while now.  But I am sharing it on today's "Tea Craft Tuesday" because it would make a lovely addition to any tea party.  I associate tea parties with the British tradition of taking afternoon tea accompanied by silver, porcelain, and beautiful linens. This project adds an elegant, though practical, touch to a tea party event.

The directions are quite simple.  Select a flat-bottomed tea tray.  I purchased this "silver" tray at the dollar store.  Paint the flat inside of the tray with chalkboard paint, following the directions on the chalkboard paint package.

IDEAS:
1) Put this project near the front door to greet your guests with a message of welcome.
2) Write your food or tea menu on this silver chalkboard tray.
3) At a large event, write directional instructions on chalkboard signs. For example, "Ladies' powder room this way."
4) At a fundraiser tea party thank an event sponsor with a note written on the tray.
5) Congratulate the bride-to-be or the anniversary couple with a note on the tray....

The possibilities are endless.

Tea Craft Tuesday: Shrink Plastic Jewelry

This set of jewelry illustrates my love of tea as well as the fun I have had experimenting with shrink plastic over the years. I made this jewelry a number of years ago when single sided printable shrink plastic film was all that was available.  Recently I have seen shrink plastic film that can be printed on both sides.  You can find shrink plastic film at most any large craft store.  You can also find it online.

Select a tea-themed word or image to use in each of the plastic circles pictured here. Lay out a page of images using Microsoft Publisher or another design program.  Next, print the shrink plastic page(s) according to package directions. Punch out the circles with circle punches. Then punch a hole in the top of each circle before baking.  (For the beaded brooch I punched a number of holes along the perimeter of the circle. For the earrings I punched a hole at the top and another hole at the bottom of each circle.) Bake the shrink plastic circles according to package directions. I did not seal the images when I made the shrink plastic circles, so over the years the wear and tear on the jewelry has caused the images to flake off.  Lesson: Be sure to seal the printed surfaces according to package instructions.

BRACELET

1) Attach a jump ring onto each plastic circle and attach them to a chain bracelet like charms.

2) Add beads between the plastic circles in order to add more color and dangle to the bracelet.

EARRINGS

1) Attach a jump ring onto to top and bottom hole of each plastic circle

2) Attach earring hooks onto the top jump ring.

3) Attach beads dangling from the bottom jump ring.

BROOCH

1) Lace a wire through the holes around the perimeter of the circle, adding small beads as you go along.

2) Glue a pin back to the back of your plastic brooch using E-6000. Let the glue on the pin back dry for 24 hours before wearing the brooch.

If you find that you enjoy working with shrink plastic, get a copy of Kathy Sheldon's book entitled Shrink! Shrank! Shrunk (Lark,2012).  She includes bright images and detailed instructions for each project in the book.

Tea Craft Tuesday: Decoupage on Glass

These two projects are decoupage on glass. I purchased simple glass candle dishes at Wal Mart to use as the base for each of these projects.  I decoupaged the candle dish at the top with a solid (opaque) tea leaf themed paper. I decoupaged the one at the bottom with two layers of dried and unfolded tea bags.  In between each layer of tea bags I placed a sprinkling of paper leaves punched from sepia colored paper.  To me these paper leaves represent dried, uncurled, tea leaves.  As a finishing touch, I painted the edges of each glass candle dish with an opaque gold paint pen.

Tea Craft Tuesday: Tea Tin Planters

I had a large, root-bound plant that needed to be divided.  So I decided to take the plant apart and re-pot it into tea tins.  As you see in the photo, this particular plant may be a bit large for tea tins, but I am satisfied with the way it looks.  You could use your tea tins as cache pots - meaning you would place plants in small plastic pots inside your tea tins. The tea tin would hide (cache) the unattractive plastic pot.  However for this project I decided to turn the tea tins into planters.

INSTRUCTIONS

1) Drill a hole in the base of each tea tin.

2) Place a scoop of pea gravel into the bottom of your tea tin.

3) Fill the remainder of the space in the tea tin with your plant and potting mix.

4) Water thoroughly and let drain before placing your plant-filled tins on a decorative tray.

I have seen this project done with herbs which creates a lovely tea-themed herb garden.  I have also seen tea tins used as the pot for flowering bulbs.