Did you ever have something that just wasn’t quite right for your project? Well, consider aging, dye, distressing, etc. Sometimes it can make something look perfect for your project. I wanted to show you how to tea dye some lace. For my large mannequin I wanted some lace trim and found the right style and size but it was white and I needed something more aged looking so I decided to dye it using tea. It’s really easy and works with lace, ribbons, fabric and even paper!

I started out by putting hot water from the tap into a plastic container and putting in a large tea bag and letting it seep for about five minutes

Then I dunked in the lace, pushing it down into the water with a plastic spoon, making sure it was totally submerged

I let it sit in the water for about 30 minutes (let it sit longer or add more tea for a darker look). Then I removed it and placed it on a stack of paper towels between an old towel

Then I pressed out as much of the the water as I could

Then I hung it over a hanger to dry (which didn’t take long) and it came out looking nice and old:)

Give it try sometime and let me know how it works. You’ll get different result depending on what you are dying, so you might want to try a scrap first before you ruin 6 yards of expensive ribbon:)

A while ago I took some wonderful classes with collage artist Mary Jo McGraw. I’ve not taken many classes, I’m pretty much self taught but I learned alot from her and had a great time “playing” with other artists. Take a class sometime, even if you’ve been doing your art for a long time, you can always learn something new and get inspired by other people and their work, you’ll be glad you did.

One of the class I took with her was working with beeswax, we took copies of photos, pages from old magazine, etc and dipped them in beeswax. And adhered them to cardstock and added stamping and other embellishments like mica and buttons.

Here are some of the pieces that I made:

Geisha:

Vincent Price (I love him:)) I re-melted the wax with a heat gun and pushed buttons and mica flakes into the hot wax to adhere them:

Victorian Woman, the buttons were dipped into alcohol inks before being added to hot wax:

Victorian Girl:

And another Geisha, I poured wax onto the piece and then stamped into it with a rubber stamp , after it cooled I rubbed pearl ex onto the wax:

So, you may be asking how is the heck do you do this?:) This is the easiest way I’ve found to use beeswax. I bought a small inexpensive mini crockpot just for my beeswax (once you use it for wax you can NOT cook food in it, so keep this in mind). I bought the small beeswax pellets at Michael’s craft store, they are in the candle making section. You can use the large chunks of wax too put the pellets melt faster and are easier to work with. So just turn on the crock pot, pour in some pellets, filing it up about half way and let them melt, this can take quite a long time, be patient:) When everything is melted you can then dip your items into the wax, be sure to use tweezers or small tongs as the wax is VERY hot. Be sure to dip quickly and pull your item out fast, if it sits in the wax too long it will not be very clear and you might not be able to see your image underneath. The wax dries very quickly so you can lay your piece down almost immediately after dipping. When you are done turn off the pot and let the wax cool inside and harden, when you are ready to use it again just turn on the pot and let the wax remelt.