Folding stuff! ;-)

Walking through the craft section in W.H.Smith, Exeter , I suddenly caught sight of these lovely papers.

They are called 'Wild Blosson' by Dovecraft.

As you can see, they have an oriental flavour.

I bought a pad of strips of paper and another pad of 8 inch squares.

I knew right away what I would do...tea bag folding..well kind of!

A variation, anyway!

I'd already done some in the week, at my Tuesday craft morning and this seemed like a good opportunity to practise some more!

Tea bag folding uses some of the techniques of Origami combined with tiny squares of patterned paper.

Once folded, these squares are combined in attractive geometric patterns to form a larger design.

The art of tea bag folding is said to have been born when a clever Dutch crafter decided to work with the decorative envelopes, used to hold fruit tea bags.

As the craft has developed, specially printed sheets have been produced with patterned squares ready to cut out and fold.

I didn't use commercially printed squares but I cut my own squares from my strips of paper.

Thus mine are not geometrically correct!

But that didn't bother me...I like to stray from rules..frequently!! ;-)

I made 12 cards for the fair.

If you want to try it yourself, here is a link to an online tutorial:

http://www.cardinspirations.co.uk/tech/teabag_folding.htm

Or there are a number of books available:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Janet-Tinys-Folding-Papers-Passion/dp/1844483959/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238399531&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teabag-Folding-Crafters-Paper-Library/dp/1844482960/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238399655&sr=8-15