Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Tea Time Tags


This is a simple but pleasing craft made of the subscription cards, which are fairly good quality paper,  from the inside of the Tea Time magazine. I've gone through my older copies and found some very pretty cards to use, as you see here.


Scissors and glue are  the only tools really needed. I wanted to try making a few other things so I included a hole puncher and some ribbon. Gather some scraps of paper of different textures and colors, and you ready to start.



First, cut out the pictures, leaving some white around the edges if possible. Then, mix and match, by laying pictures on papers until you find  the backgrounds  that tend to make the picture look the best.  Change them around until you find what you like, and then, glue the pictures to the backgrounds.



Since there is advertising on the back of the card, cut some white paper the same size and glue together.


I wanted to see what it would look like as a napkin ring for a tea party, by pasting a strip of paper to it and taping it together to make a ring, as you see below. It probably would look much better on a cloth napkin.



Here is one made for a pink napkin. Wouldn't these  look nice set around a tea table?


It could be used on a large blank card, like this, with the invitation or greeting stamped or hand written inside:


It might also be used as a tag by punching a hole at the top and inserting ribbon,


and penning the invitation on the blank side:



It might work as a place card, by placing the fold on top, and adding a piece of paper shaped like a banner ribbon, to form a space for the recipient's name:

The place card style could be glued on three sides and made to hold a tea bag, as a guest favor.

More tag style cards here:


After making a few things with these cards,  I found that this one was my favorite:


with the invitation written inside:



They look like tiny little magazines, and I liked this style the best, and I liked the white construction paper as a background.


Children's construction paper or scrapbook papers work well with this craft.  Look for other subscription cards, such as those inside of Southern Lady or Victoria, which are, more often than not, very nice pictures.

12 comments:

Mahek said...

great idea!!!!!

Rightthinker said...

I just love this idea..how darling!

God Bless, LadyLydia!

Suzanne said...

Very cute idea and love the whole recycling the pictures.

Anonymous said...

Lovely ideas, Lady Lydia! The tags would look nice on scrapbooking pages and cards-which is one of my goals for 2012. I'm thinking of taking the Christmas cards we received and cut them into Christmas tags for next year.
You inspire me so much! I love paper crafting - especially junk mail craft!
Thank you!
-blessings - carol

Anonymous said...

Lydia,
I just love the mini-magazine tags, invitations, place setting, and other ideas you came up with. So creative.

A while back I found that a tea company had scriptures printed on the tea bag tags and boxed them up beautifully. Wouldn't that be a fun gift to get a box of tea with custom scriptures attached to each teabag.

Thanks for sharing another great paper craft idea.

Blessings, Mrs. J.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, I guess I should have made clear what I was thinking.
I thought that using the mag. subscription cut-out and a scripture sheet then sandwiching the existing tea tag inside.

Mrs. J.

Anonymous said...

Lady Lydia these are very pretty. I love it when you show ways of using 'found' materials. It's a wonderful thing for children to learn and even if a child is too young to do the whole project on their own they help mother with some small part of it. Just seeing their mother or the older girls of the household doing such work is ideal training for the tinies.

Anonymous said...

The hand-writing in the tag is just beautiful. I'm lucky I was trained to write in that style and seeing this post has inspired me. In January I'm going to buy myself a fountain pen like the ones I had during schooldays, some nice notepaper and I'm going to make a real effort to write fewer emails and send actual letters!Thank you Lydia for giving me my first new year's resolution!

Lydia said...

In showing trash crafts, I'm not saying we should feel we have to only use scraps for creativity, but I do think people should at least know how to do it. One thing we used to do way back in the late 40's and 50's was make bells for ornaments, out of egg carton cups. We covered them in foil and made clangers out of balls of foil, attached to ribbon which was threaded through a hole in the bell. These bells looked lovely in a cluster of ribbons on the front door.

Cynthia Berenger said...

What a cute idea for repurposing! Wishing you and your family a very blessed new year.

Agape always,
Cynthia

Anonymous said...

Lydia,

Might you consider a morning or afternoon tea menu and recipes for a near future post or series of posts?

The options are endless.

Here's a tea fact; after water, tea is the most popular beverage worldwide - from ireland, to Morocco, to Iran, to Russia, to Japan, each culture has its own distinctive way of preparing and enjoying tea re the tea itself, tea crockery and accessories, accompanying foodstuffs etc not to mention the tradition around brewing and taking tea that reaches the highest pinacle of elegance in the artful and incredibly beautiful Japanese tea ceremony.

Just a few thoughts.

You may wish to compose a 'tea around the world' series, each week covering the topic from a different nation's perspective - clothing, the table (or otherwise) tea service, snacks, history and so on.

Lydia said...

That would certainly be an exciting and interesting blogging experience! Thank you for suggesting it.