Tea Technique

So, I was completely inspired by the tea bag in this month's "Can't Buy Me Love" kit. When I was little, my Mom and I used to make treasure maps (fun crafty idea for little kids). We'd draw all these pictures and paths. We wanted to make them look old, so we would get wet tea bags and rub them all over the paper to give it that aged, lost treasure map look. When I saw the tea bag in this month's kit, I immediately thought of using it to distress and age some of the kit elements.

I wet the tea bag and put it in a mug with the white shipping tag and one of the tiny doilies. I crumpled the doily and tag up and rubbed the tea bag all over them. Then, let them sit in the mug for several hours. When I thought they had achieved the right level of aging, I (carefully) took them out of the mug and laid them on a paper towel to dry completely. Once they were dry, I had some nice, aged elements for my layout.

This layout is all about the journaling. I layered a bunch of stickers and embellies over the envelope included in the kit. I journaled on some regular paper and then made a little enclosure for the journaling out of some of the Jenni Bowlin paper. Then I tied some embroidery floss around the journaling to seal it up.