Monday 30 March 2009

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.

14 comments:

  1. good morning Sal, what a lovely post, I used to love tea bag folding and I never knew why it was called so... as ever you are full of information. I still like the origarmi thing but now do it with fabric rather than paper... go on have a go....

    ReplyDelete
  2. They look great, very impressive.

    Mel xxx

    ReplyDelete
  3. You area scarily talented lady...you put me to shame. Love the new blog header by the way.

    Sue xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Fascinating stuff, will definitely click on some of those links later. Tried leaving a comment a few minutes ago and it wouldn't let me.... thought I'd been banned for bad behaviour, ha! ha! x

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'd never heard of tea-bag folding - I think yours are very pretty - even if they don't comply with the rules;)
    I too like your new header photo:) Thanks for teaching me something new today.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've never heard of tea bag folding either.... looks very hard. How clever are you! Think I may be off Friday 17th April.... any good??? They do keep changing the rota's so I'll keep you up dated. :) x

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yer!
    Cor! abn't I got mesel in a right ole pickle
    I started with one corner then tuther on the apposite side as it were
    Then thikky trade burst in me face
    Tis a praaper mess I can tell ee
    Missus Do I use a cold tay bag or is it better if ee were yet

    ReplyDelete
  8. Very clever indeed, gorgeous stuff as usual.
    Thanks for your comment. I did enquire when Jack went to school about keeping him back a year, decided against it when the head said that not only could they not guarantee him a place but he would also start in year 1 missing the whole of reception - what's a mum to do??!! I'd have liked to kept them with me for an extra year but it wasn't to be.
    Have a lovely and no doubt creative week!
    Julia x

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sal, how do you manage to work so quickly?? Would love to know how you manage to fit so much into a day.
    Btw, love the photo on the top of your blog

    ReplyDelete
  10. Your blog always wins my admiration for its very clever ideas and also for its cheery colours. You seem to have such a wealth of ideas. Lovely stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  11. These are lovely. The boys and I tend to try a different papercraft for Christmas cards every year, and two years ago our eldest got very into teabag folding, mainly made with Christmas wrapping paper. He loves origami, so I knew we were onto a winner!

    We'll have to try it for different times of the year now, inspired by your pictures...

    ReplyDelete
  12. I love teabag folding - have you ever looked at the circle of crafters website. It is brilliant - there are loads of teabag tiles you can print off (available in different sizes as well). Iris folding is another card art on there. There are loads more ideas on the message board as well. Link is: www.circleofcrafters.com
    Best wishes, Jane

    ReplyDelete
  13. You're a crafting dynamo!!! very lovely papaer. The cards look great.
    Twiggy x

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to comment! ;-)