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Are You Dressing Up for New Years Eve?

How about a dress like this?

The Oddity Central shares via Tea News Direct that this eco dress was made of 4000 tea bags by a 16 year science student from Kuala Lampur. It took 3 months to complete the dress once she had saved enough tea bags. Her design was inspired by the beauty and intricacy of flowers, whose shapes mesmerize her.

She entered the dress in the Green Awards in Kuala Lampur and took the top prize in the wildly creative category. According to the article at Oddity, "Suraya says that people tend to take flowers for granted, and through her dress she wanted to highlight the significance of nature, especially that of flowers."

Long time followers of this blog may recall this posting, featuring a dress created by a 2nd year design student.

Tea just continues to inspire. How might it inspire you in the upcoming new year? Will you sip it while menu planning, or drawing up plans for a garden, or while journaling or writing poetry? Will you look at the dry or spent tea leaves and consider what you could do with them? What about those zip bags that Steeped Tea comes in - could you do something creative with those? We'd love to hear all about how tea inspires you, so leave us a comment!

Remember, too, as December draws to a close that this month's specials are only available for a few more days!

Dyed to a Tea!

Have you ever tried to dye anything with tea? I have dyed a silk scarf which I then stamped on to give as a gift. Although having tried it once, I certainly couldn't call myself an expert, and wouldn't say that the results are consistent enough to turn it into a business.

But entrepreneur Janis Badarau has enjoyed success dying tee-shirts and selling them online, so much so, that she's rebranded her company name to CrafTea Designs. The new name reflects the company's diversification into additional tea-related gift products.

Amongst the new product lines, which will be introduced in time for holiday shopping, are tea-dyed ribbons of lace and embellished fabric; origami teapot jewlery; and tea leaf bead jewelry.

All products are completely hand-crafted, all-natural, and eco-friendly.

Based in Lavonia, Georgia, Badarau is best known among specialty tea professionals for her online publications The Cat-Tea Corner and TeaGuide Worldwide Tea Directory. But on the side, she has perfected a method for dyeing clothing and accessories with tea.

Have you dyed cloth with tea? How did it work out for you?

Another Tea-Related Halloween Costume

This one's adorable, but if you want to use this idea this year, you'd better get started right away!

These instructions come from Kidsturncentral.com/holidays

This costume was made with paper mache. I used the biggest exercise ball I could find to make the form.

I cut out fabric that had flowers on it and I used Mod Podge to adhere to the form.

I used satin blanket binding for the  ribbon

and bow. I saturated it with Modpodge to make it look like ceramic.

The lid was made out of the bottom of a plastic cake holder and a paper plate on top with a rubberball on top for the knob, then I covered the whole thing in paper mache. Don't forget to attach some holder into the cake holder for the ribbons that hold it onto the head.

The spout was made out of 4 inch dryer vent and the handle was made out of 3 inch dryer vent. Attach these after you have done several layers of paper meche. I used duct tape to attach the spout and handle to the paper meche ball.

I left the exercise ball inflated until all of this was dry. After they are attached you will need to do several more layers of paper meche.

This costume won first place in our town's contest . I hope these instructions are helpful. I made this for my grandaughter. It was truly a labor of love, and it was a lot of work.

Halloween Costume Idea #2

If you don't have the time or inclination to make a costume, you can still share your passion for tea. Check out some of these tea-related costumes, all selling on e-bay. Chip, Mrs. Potts, a Mad Hatter, a tea bag - they're all there!

 
  

  
 
  

Halloween Costume Ideas #1

Are you off to a Halloween masquerade? Why not show off your passion for tea with your costume?

Here are directions for a simple costume - go as a tea bag. Really easy instructions from About:sewing.com

Tea Bag Halloween Costume

Dateline: 10/21/97
An economical Halloween costume made with interfacing and fall leaves.
 

Materials needed:

• Interfacing (light weight, inexpensive but with a little bit of stiffness)
• Fall leaves
• Thread
• Heavy cotton string
• A piece of poster board or construction paper
• Markers to color a tag

Directions

(NOTE: All seams refer to a 1/2" seam allowance)

BODY OF COSTUME:

Measure across the shoulders of the person who will be wearing the costume. This will be measurement A.

Measure from the neckline area to the crotch area. This will be Measurement B.

For a "flow through tea bag" You will need to make two tea pouches, one for the front and one for the back.

Double measurement B. Cut the interfacing (measurement A by two times measurement B).

Fold the interfacing in half so that Measurement A meets Measurement A. Stitch from the folded edge up both sides. Don't turn inside out. Stuff the pouch loosely with fall leaves. Stitch the top closed.

Repeat for both pouches.

Attach heavy string to the top of both bags for shoulder straps. Attach another piece of string from the back of a shoulder strap to come around and hang in the front.

Design a tea bag tag. Attach it to the end of the hanging string.

Creative Suggestions:

If your family is in to herbal teas, create their favorite tag and use colored leaves.

Use your favorite brand of tea to create your tea tag.

Here's the finished product!

Does it Come in My Size?

Would you guess that this gorgeous gown is made with teabags? 

The gown was designed and made by second year fashion design student Ashleigh Evans of Bodalla.

“I began the dress in preparation for my HSC two years ago but didn’t finish it to my liking, so I have treated it as a work in progress pulling it out whenever I felt like working on it,” Ashleigh said.

Ashleigh said that she was initially inspired by the works of local textile artist Jennifer Hawkins who made wall hangings using used teabags.

“First off I needed to collect copious amount of teabags,” Ashleigh said.

After Ashleigh had forced her parents to drink as much tea as they could handle she gave in and soaked about 800 more tea bags in the bath.

The used teabags were then dried.

“There were teabags drying on every window sill in the house and when there was no more room inside I started leaving them to dry outside the house,” Ashleigh said.

“After drying I had to carefully open each teabag, remove the tea and iron each piece.”

“I sewed the teabags in lines a lot like quilting and then sewed the lines together to produce the fabric that was about six metres long by a metre and a half wide,” she said.

After sewing and dying the fabric Ashleigh then ironed the fabric to a piece of interfacing to strengthen it.

The design for the dress was inspired from the Victorian era.

Ashleigh then cut out the pattern for the dress and a black silk taffeta lining before sewing the dress together and decorating the bodice with wool tops, novelty threads and dye treatments.

Each panel of the skirt represents a different landscape climbing upwards towards the bodice, representing the sky.