Upcycled Tea Bag Art Cards

Years ago, I discovered the thrill of turning used office paper, junk mail and dried flowers into handmade recycled paper.  A mere blender and a window screen gave me the power to turn trash into artful stationary.  It felt revolutionary.

The excitement of turning cast off items into art never left me, and recently, I discovered the idea of turning used tea bags into tiny artworks.  

The procedure is simple. As soon as your tea bags have served their job, been plucked from the hot water and cooled, you can carefully open them up and dump the tea leaves into a compost pile or flower bed. 

 Rinse the paper tea bag to remove any excess leaf bits.  Let them dry, and put them to use!

I have a collection of stamps I made from wine corks and old erasers.  The wobbly little stamp designs suited my teabags ideally.

I experimented with creating collage cards, and noticed that the tea bag paper is porous.  When I tried using liquid PVA glue on my stamped teabags, I had troubles with the ink running, and with the glue showing through the paper.  

Glue sticks worked better.  The stamped design didn't run, and the teabag paper was tough enough, in spite of its gossamer nature, to withstand the pressure of running a tac glue stick over it.

I like the transparency & earth-tones I find in teabag paper, and discovered that it works beautifully in layering and letting designs beneath it show through -- this time with liquid PVA glue (below).

Scraps I used for testing watercolor paint swatches became collage pieces that matched the tea color of my teabag papers.  Magic!

One of the most fun parts of creating with upcycled materials for me is the experimentation phase, when I discover what a material can do.  

My teabags came in two sizes -- 2 1/2" round bags, and 4" x 6" rectangles.  I found that the rectangular pieces made delightful stationary on their own.  I wrote a letter to my best friend -- an ideal paper for concentrated thoughts and focused ideas. I made sure to put a scrap piece of paper underneath the teabag paper as I wrote with a rollerball ink pen -- the porous paper let some of the ink through.

Why not brew up some iced tea, unfurl the teabags, and create your own miniature artworks this summer?  A lovely way to spend time in artful self-care.

Coffee Shop Fridays: Icelandic Volcano Cards & The 87% Rule

 

I never know what will come out of my Coffee Shop Friday night painting sessions.  Often, I experiment with abstract images, letting colors interact with each other and the brown paper that serves as my canvas.

After the paint dries, I take a viewfinder -- just a piece of cardboard I cut a rectangle out of -- and search my paintings for interesting sections to make into art cards.  

I used to be far more precious about making cards, taking hours to get everything "perfect."  But I know there's no such thing as perfect, and that attempting to create to that standard steals my joy.

So, I've developed The 87% Rule:  get the design to about 87% of what you think ideal is, and glue it down.  Move on.  This approach frees me up, helps me tap into my intuition, and keeps my creative flow going.  

And it's way more fun!

I have been watching videos of the Icelandic volcano, with golden & crimson lava shooting like a geyser, and flowing over the purple-black volcanic rocks.  White clouds of vapor often enshroud the volcano.  

I realized about halfway through creating this series of cards that my paintings expressed the heat and drama of the volcano.

Flames lick. Vapor rises.

Lava coils in the heart of the volcano, ready to explode.

By letting my intuition lead me in choosing paint colors, patterns, and card designs, I allowed my soul this visual discussion of the volcano, the power of nature, and the creation of a new landscape -- a new reality.  

Our minds express themselves in symbols and imagery.  It only makes sense that allowing our intuition to lead us opens the doors to express whatever we are processing internally.