Tea Dying – How-To
I recently did a little tea dying. It’s super easy, cheap (just the price of a couple of tea bags!), and a lot cleaner than working with chemical dyes. It gives a great aged look to fabrics, laces, ribbons, even paper.
All I did was boil a cup and a half of water, throw in a tea bag – in this case orange pekoe (different teas yield different colors and intensities – experiment!) let the tea steep for a few mins, then toss in the item I wanted to dye. I just let them soak for a few mins, until the desired darkeness was achieved. Keep in mind the item will appear darker when wet than it will actually be when dry. I laid them out to dry, and voila!
Below, you can see I dyed lace, velvet ribbon (it aged the pink and green very well), as well as a few plain index cards I crumpled up.
