Add a touch of old world charm to your handmade junk journals and creative journals. Learn how easy it is to make your own tea dyed lace and thread!
Adding bits of vintage style lace to the pages of your junk journals and creative journals adds a touch of unique creativity and makes them look much more interesting.
Pieces of lace and fabric can be glued, or sewn by hand or machine onto the pages using simple stitches, so you don’t really need any special skills.
Aging and adding stains to white lace and hand embroidery threads can be quickly and easily done using black tea. Tea bags are more convenient, but a brew of loose tea leaves will also work.
You could use coffee but the stain tends to be darker. Using tea allows you to slowly build depth of color, whereas coffee can darken the lace too quickly. This process doesn’t require any special skill or knowledge and can be done in minutes. Here’s how to do it.
How to Make Tea Dyed Lace and Thread for a Vintage Look
What You Need
- Black tea bags
- A small bowl
- White lace and hand embroidery thread
Prepare the Tea Bags
To dye using tea, put three or four tea bags in a bowl and add boiling water. Allow the tea bags to steep until the water has a strong color.
Remove the tea bags – but don’t throw them away! Set them aside on a plate to dry.
Once dried, the tea bags can be opened and the tea leaves removed.
The tea bag paper can then be used as background papers in your journals – they’re just the right size to add some interesting stained paper texture to collages.
Make Tea Dyed Lace
Gather some white lace and embroidery thread.
Before dyeing embroidery thread, carefully open the skein, weave two or three pieces of yarn through through the threads at regular intervals, and tie off. This will prevent the threads from becoming tangled.
Once you have everything ready, put it into the hot tea solution and let it soak for 2 or 3 minutes. Pull a piece out to test the color. If it needs to be darker, let it soak for a few more minutes.
Remove from the tea solution, rinse in cold water, and allow to dry on a towel. The color will always appear darker when wet, so if the color appears too light after the pieces have dried, just repeat the process until you get a color depth that you’re pleased with.
Once dried, you can see how lovely and aged the tea dyed lace and threads look when compared to the white. It’s perfect for adding a touch of vintage style to your journals.
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