Prepping for the Summer Art Project

Drying teabags on fabric.

I spent some time in the kitchen today preparing for this summer's family art project.

Teabags waiting for the boiling water.

Black and green teabags soaking.

Why waste tea? The teabags are drying on cloth and more cloth is soaking in the tea.

Every summer, I put on my artistic thinking cap and come up with a project to share with my nieces and nephew and other family members.

In the past we've:

• made Jazzy dolls
• created woven bags on an innovative loom (my design) for collecting summer treasures
• painted and sun printed silk scarves and created story bags
• printed fabric squares for a 60th anniversary hanging

This summer, I was inspired by one of my Story Cloth students, Susan P. For one of her story cloths she printed designs on dried teabags. I even decided to write my upcoming Newsletter about Deconstructing Tea...using dried teabags, the little envelopes they come, the tags and string and even the boxes to create little pieces of tea art (Hope you'll sign up for Julie B Booth Surface Design News (if you haven't already) to find out more about it!)

Some of the teabag prints from the next issue of Julie B Booth Surface Design News.

My plan is for all of us to make little books using teabags for pages. We'll collect small leaves and other nature textures and print on the teabags. The covers will be made from softened and painted brown paper. As usual, I'm already getting excited to see what my nieces and nephew do. They always surprise and amaze me!

Robbin's Woven Bag

Robbin's finished bag

For the past two summers, my extended family has spent a week together in Cape Cod, MA. Both summers, I designed a fiber art project for the family (and in particular, for my talented niece, Ivy) to work on.

Last summer, I designed a special weaving loom (an ingenious one, I have to admit!) to create two possible bag designs.

The loom I designed for last summer's project

Robbin working on her woven bag last summer

This weekend, when we all got together for Mom's 80th, Robbin brought her bag. She put the finishing stitches into her lining. I was so pleased to see the finished piece.

A peek at the beautiful lining

Robbin seemed pleased as well.