Making Tags

Yesterday I tea-stained some paper to use for making tags. These tags will be the price tags for the items I sell at the upcoming Flea market and also for BLOOM~N~Bottles. This is something I just came up with and wanted to share how I do it.

First I make a pot of hot tea and use about 6 tea bags per pot. I use regular tea for the brownish color. Flavored teas can be used for color variation.......like chamomile for a lighter, yellowish color, chai for a reddish color, etc. I pour the tea in a cake pan and place one piece of computer paper at a time in the pan. Let the tea soak through and then take the paper out and lay it on a towel. (Note.......you will have a tea-dyed towel also so use an old one!)

The splotchy old look comes from squeezing the tag bags on the paper and also pouring more tea on. I just ladle more and more on throughout the day..............................................................After the paper dries, it looks like it is 100 years old. Now you can run it through your printer.

After that I glue old book pages to the light side of the paper (so the old, darker side shows) and cut out individual tags.

Then I use my Bee stamp with sparkly gold ink. Don't they look old? These I cut but if the edges were simply torn that would be cute too. Today I will be pricing all the items for the flea market next Saturday. It will be fun to go through all the boxes of stuff I have acquired and see what all is there.