Tea Bag Envelopes

unikatissima Tea Bag Envelopes

I’m collecting nearly everything (and that’s how it looks here, too ;-)) and from now on I will collect used tea bags, too, to make beautiful envelopes from.
I’m really curious about it. ;-))
On the photo you see my Rooibosh tea bags. I find that the Rooibosh tea gives the most beautiful colour, a very warm red-brown :)

By the way it must look great, too, if the tea bags are sewn together and/or if they are embellished after assembly, e.g. by embroidering, painting or stamping them.


Links:
Recycling Tea Bags into Art Projects: How to Create Tea Bag Envelopes

“Tea Ceremony” – sewn tea bags
(via Wewer Keohane)
Sas Colby Teabag Art Discourse – stamped tea bags
T-Bag – Tea Bag Designs – painted tea bags

Here at unikatissima: Paper Crazy Quilt – embroidered paper

Chainstitch Card

unikatissima Chainstitch Card

I just wanted to show once more how beautiful embroidery on paper and cardboard can be ;-)

Here I cut a beautiful blue patterned square from a magazine and glued on white cardboard.
Then I drew very faint curved lines with a pencil, pricked holes along the lines and stitched them with a chain stitch.
Looks fine, doesn’t it?

I find though that the chain stitch looks much better on straight lines or wide curves than on sharp turns (it ‘inclines’ somewhat), that’s something one could pay attention to when drawing the lines.


Links:
Instruction for chain stitch

Here at unikatissima: Embroidered Matisse Cushion

What Can You Do With Filet Crochet/Cross Stitch Embroidery Charts?

unikatissima Two-coloured Chart (click to enlarge)

Recently something took me and I thought that you can use those two-coloured charts which are usually associated with filet crochet or cross stitch for a loooot of other techniques, too.
I had this idea already before, in my entries about intarsia knitting, the cross stitch heart, the beaded square stitch heart and the polymer clay letter cane.

On the photo you see some letters worked in different techniques (I’m working on letter charts at the moment ;-)):
'u' - Knit-Purl Knitting, each X is a purl stitch
'n' - Fair Isle Knitting, each X is a white stitch
'i' - Sequins Embroidery, each X is a sequin
'k' - Tapestry Crochet, each X is a white stitch
'a' - Filet Crochet, each X is a filled filet crochet square
't' - Cross Stitch Embroidery on paper, each X is a black cross stitch
'i' - Loom Beading, each X is a black bead
's' - Stamping with square stamps, each X is a black square stamp
's' - Illusion Knitting, each X is a black stitch over two rows
'i' - Crochet Yoyo’s, each X is a white crochet circle from dc’s
'm' - Inverted Filet Crochet, each X is a empty filet crochet square
'a' - Macramée/Friendship Bracelet, each X is a white knot

But then I came up with more techniques and if you still have more ideas I’d be glad if you wrote a comment about.
I added for every technique what would be a square of the chart.
Please remember: Not all ‘units’ are square so that the result can look quite different from the chart!

Knitting

Crochet

  • Tapestry Crochet – 1 stitch
  • Filet Crochet – 1 filet square (cross = filled square)
  • Inverted Filet Crochet – 1 filet square (cross = empty square)
  • Crochet Yoyo’s – 1 Crochet Yoyo, viz. a crochet circle from dc’s

Beading

Embroidery

Knotting

Weaving

Sewing

  • Patchwork/Quilting – e.g. 1 patchwork square
  • Yoyo’s – 1 Yoyo
  • Fabric Origami – 1 fabric origami square

Other

By the way I found an blog entry of an embroiderer who thought about the same subject and has more ideas.


Links:
Double Knitting
Picture for sequin embroidery (scroll down to about the middle)
Description of French Knot
Heather’s Friendship Bracelets – Alphabet Patterns
Geometric stitching
Google image search result for ‘yoyo blanket’
Google image search result for ‘ministeck’

Here at unikatissima:
Celtic Cross Stitch Generator
Heart Template (at Beaded Square Stitch Heart)

Patchwork Knitting
Bead Knitting
Illusion knit

Tapestry Crochet
Beautiful Filet Crochet Patterns

Loom Woven Bead Bracelet
Beaded Square Stitch Heart
Bead Knitting
Freeform Bead Embroidery
Bead embroidered Paisleys

Friendship Bracelet
Crazy Daisies
Crazy Daisies II

Tablet or Card Weaving

YoYo Pin
Fabric Origami

Mosaic Table Light (Glass Paint)
Polymer Clay Letter Cane
Mosaic from Plaster
Eraser Stamps

Simple Pop-Up Card

unikatissima A Simple Pop-up

Recently I re-discoverd the website of Lisa Vollrath whose tutorials I always found really great.
When I saw her ‘A Simple Tabbed Pop-Up’ I wanted to try it immediately.
But then it started: No, I don’t want to make an Eiffelturm, but something else. But what? Somebody wrote something about sail boats in the comments.
Ok, good idea.
Ehm, the toner of my printer won’t suffice to print something.
Hmm, Lisa said that actually it doesn’t matter how large the tabs are…

 

unikatissima A Simple Pop-up
Thus I took an A4 paper horizontally and my Xacto knife and startet to cut a sail boat and the sea.
I find my card for a try on the spur of the moment quite nice, but I haven’t decided yet what to put on the front side ;-)


Links:
At Go Make Something: A Simple Tabbed Pop-Up

Paper Flower

unikatissima Paper Flower

I found an instruction for a nice paper flower and thought that this should work with self-coloured paper, too.
It did ;-)

 

unikatissima Paper Flower First I painted on a sheet of toilet paper with some markers.

 

unikatissima Paper Flower I dropped water on my ‘painting’, but it was a little too much water and everything swam.
In order not to get everything dirty I have put it luckily on an old little plastic bag.

 

unikatissima Paper Flower Therefore I put another sheet of toilet paper onto the first, the water and the dye dispersed on both.
I blow-dried everything to dry it faster ;-)

 

unikatissima Paper Flower I cut my papers by guess and by gosh, that is to say without a pre-sketched spiral and my scissors were quite blunt.

 

unikatissima Paper Flower That may be the reason why my little ‘roses’ look so beautiful ;-)

 


Links:
Paper Flower – the tutorial works backwards, you must always click the previous picture to get the next step

Papier-mâché Faux Bois

poopscape Papier-mache Faux Bois

I’ve seen several paper maché objects, but jars looking like stumps are still something special to me.
Something especially cute ;-))

I’m not totally sure that I should make them myself ;-), but I liked them so much that I wanted to present them here.

Furthermore I didn’t know this paper maché preparation, I really like to give a try some day.


Links:
Papier-mâché Faux Bois
via One Pretty Thing

Wine Glass Candle Lampshades

unikatissima Glass Candle Lampshade

I found the instruction on how to make wine glass candle lampshades neat, but I don’t have to rely on pre-made templates any more, because I know how to construct a cone ;-))
That’s exactly what I’ve done, additionally I didn’t use no wine glass but a water glass.

 

unikatissima Glass Candle Lampshade Admittedly a wine glass would look better, because the tea light is hidden then.
Or I should cover the lower part of the water glass.
Or I should make the cone higher (and I can ;-)).

I made my lampshade from sandwich paper which is actually too fine and doesn’t hold the shape (in the instruction they are using vellum). To improve this I taped some clear tape against the paper from the inside.
But it didn’t help very much.

 

unikatissima Glass Candle Lampshade Before I cut the lampshade I embellished it with some flourishes – looks cute, doesn’t it?

 

This is my cone calculation (shortened version):
Desired data:
Height H = 6 cm
Upper radius Rt = 3 cm
Lower radius Rb = 5 cm

Calculation:
PQ = Rt * H / (Rb – Rt) = 9
QT = 3
PT = sqrt(81 + 9) = 9,5
PR = 15
RS = 5
PS = sqrt(225 + 25) = 15,8

That is:
Outer radius = 15,8 cm
Inner radius = 9,5 cm

a = 360 * (1 – ((2 * Pi * Rb) / (2 * Pi * PS))) = 360 * (1 – (31,4 / 94,8) ˜ 241°

Great, isn’t it? ;-)

As you can also see on the topmost photo, another advantage of self-calculation is that the upper rim of the lampshade barely protrude over the rim of the glass and therefore the danger of fire is reduced.
Anyhow: Always be careful!
;-)


Links:
Wine Glass Candle Lampshades

Here at unikatissima: Calculation of a cone on the basis of the desired height, desired upper and lower diameter

Card with Paper Ornament

unikatissima Card with Paper Ornament

I found the umpteenth instruction on how to cut a snowflake from paper, but this time the snowflake looked so much more beautiful than usually.
I made immediately a card with non winterly coloured advertising junk mail paper :)


Links:
Fidgety Fingers: Magazine Manifesto – Paper Snow

Here at unikatissima: Kirigami Flower

Floating Paper

unikatissima Floating Paper

Once I found the instruction on how to preserve leaves with beeswax. This way you can make the leaves for float on water.
I really liked the idea, but it is winter now and I thought that you can do the same with paper, similar to the beeswax collage.
Then I thought further and found out, that paper floats without wax also (goes muuuuch swifter! ;-))).

On the first photo you see a glass bowl with a simple tea light, the paper snippets are from some advertising junk mail.

 

unikatissima Floating Paper For this photo I thought even further (which wasn’t easy ;-)) and spread on some confetti from the hole puncher.
I like it!

 

The only problem was the disposal when I wanted to throw away the confetti. I couldn’t fish them out without problems. Therefore I put a piece of tissue paper onto the gutter of my kitchen sink so that no confetti could pass through, and poured slowly the bowl on the tissue paper (if you pour too fast the tissue paper can slip). The water went through and the confetti assembled onto the tissue paper, so that I simply had to throw away the tissue paper with the confetti.


Links:
Preserving Leaves with Beeswax for Floating on Water

Here at unikatissima: Beeswax Collage