Tea cup card with teabag

I made another tea cup! 

This time I did remember to document the whole process, I believe :D 

I began by taking pictures of the embossing, 

I was quite thrilled by the water discovery so I took pictures to show how it happens.

I used a paint brush to "paint" the shape with the water, the first one to the left has already broken through the water, I used a tool to outline it and pushed it gently. The second one did soak in the water but is just there without further prodding. The third one is just a fat drop of water that has not yet been absorbed by the paper.

I found out that adding some regular white glue or PVC helps to strengthen the paper, and I'm hoping it makes good filling material as well so the embossed area isn't too fragile.

The next step was to keep on outlining and gently rubbing the design from the back or inside. I do this placing it over 3 napkins, just regular paper napkins, otherwise the embossing can't "grow".

I have no idea what the tool I use is called, I found it in my mother's stuff too many years ago and never heard it's name or where she got it from. If anyone knows I'd really love to find out so I can get others and replace this one since one end comes off, although I'm not complaining since the inside part of the metal tip comes in handy sometimes! :)

And here I turned the paper around so this is the front or right side of it and went all around the design with the small ball tip of my tool so it would become defined. I removed the napkins from underneath so it was on a flat and hard surface, a glass would be ideal, I just used my cutting mat. 

So, after I was done I lined the embossed part with pink bond paper and cut the back of the cup shape and glued them all, leaving a big pocket inside the cup. For the embossed part of the cup I used thick paper, in México we call it "papel marquilla" and I'm not sure what its English name is or what its components are, but I remember getting blocks of that paper through my entire schooling years for art lessons, and I loved it back then as much as I do now!. Specially because it came in a rather large size and it's great for water colors, gouaché, ink and coloring pencils.

And it was time for my favourite part! The little teabag tag. Can you tell how tiny it is from the picture? In my country we use the metric system, so I'm not too familiar with inches yet!.

The white paper on the left is the actual tag and it's made of coated paper, as well as the "tea bag". The little square to the right is -well, at that point was going to be- a little paper cut out silhouette, I cut through 2 papers at once so I could have them on both sides of the tag.

I felt so happy cutting paper that I made a flower for the front of the tea cup

Time for some music! 

I was very happy that Alice asked me about Philippe Jaroussky yesterday on her comment, actually she asked about counter tenors. I love this video! 

OK, back to the card. I needed to attach the string to the teabag so that it would stay put if it got pulled out from it, I was wondering how to do that and I remembered seeing this hand at Elsita Mora's blog that I liked very much so I decided to make one to hold the string in place.

Click on the picture to go to the original post where this image comes from.

So I made a tiny hand similar to the one on the picture

But that didn't go too well as the fingers in the middle became distorted so I started a bigger one

I traced a design on it using the same tool I use for embossing, come to think of it I call it a burin sometimes, and began cutting. 

At one point I had to use my thread counter to see some of the details on it.

Then I realized it needed some backing so I could actually glue the tag's string to it, so I added some.

And here is the teabag finished. I made some tea with the tip of a paintbrush and paint :) It actually has a 3rd fold not visible on this picture, so it's a triptych. Everything else on it is blank so a note can be written on it.

And here at last is the finished tea cup with its teabag inside it 

Do you like it? :)

Stacked tea cups 2

I've just finished the second card and came to share it!
These on the right are  the original tea cups.

And below are the ones I made today. For some strange reason I forgot to take pictures of the third and fourth cups while I was making them, I'm a bit bewildered about it since I remember thinking about taking those pictures as I was making them :D

So here we go, this is the first one, behind it is the  plate. It's not painted yet but I had embossed its edges.

 For the spoon I did an experiment, I embossed it using water, and look at it! Completely three dimensional! :)

I made some lavender twigs with a purple bow for the spoon.

And began cutting  out the pattern for the second tea cup.

My daughter told me that it couldn't be used to drink tea from after all the "holes" I had made on it, but I told her that we didn't know if perhaps it was lined with glass on the inside ;)

Here are the first two cups stacked up.

And here should go the other two cups I somehow missed taking snaps of! o.O

So I'll have to skip all the way to the fifth cup! Which here has the inside already painted.

And here it had the handle "on" for the shot. It's a separate piece.

The blue botanical pattern reminded me so much of a "Nantucket Briar" box we used to have eleven years ago! It had bathing "milk" in it, it used to bubble up A LOT! And it was incredibly fragrant! Those were the good old days! :)  

Here are all cups finally done :) All that's left now is the card, and an envelope!
That one I haven't made yet, but these are two more pictures of the finished card:

I hope you like it! If you have any suggestions of other kinds of cards I could make using teapots and tea cups I would love to hear them!

I have a couple ideas in mind but nothing in concrete yet. 

One of them would be a big cup with a tea bag that could be pulled out and the message could be written on the tea bag. Maybe it could open like a little card. I'll have to experiment a little bit with it to understand how it could work! 

I'm so glad my kids have a school break and I get to work again! 

My youngest just started kinder garden and

I've been quite busy adjusting to the new schedule and have missed writing in here!

Here is a pretty song that I was listening to while finishing this project :)

A small paper-cut-out

I started making these little paper cut-outs to make my business cards special.

I love the format and thickness of  this material
and I'd love to have a wall full of paper cuttings in this size!

Just imagine how fun that would be! 

My designs often start out looking like this first picture and I cut from there. Other times I just cut away.

Below you can see pictures of how I made this one :)

 I love exposed roots! They make gorgeous patterns and make me wonder the age of the plant or tree that has them, therefore this particular plant-specie has them!

 I made a mother plant with two little daughters to her left :)

The lowest flower seems to be kissing the oldest daughter on her top leaf!

I think I should have linked one of her leaves to the smallest plant.

I'll keep that thought in mind for another cutting, 

in the meantime this one is:

Available at my etsy shop

Taking sweet flight

My best friend's daughter moved out of her parents house this January. She's old enough to do it, however I felt quite saddened at first. Even when it seems to be the logical development of life.

I remember she was my own daughter's age when we first met, and that doesn't seem to have been too long ago.

When I first moved out on my own the first thing I wanted were things to hang up on my walls. I had the compelling need to surround my self with beauty. So I made her a present.

I think I was a little bit influenced by Elsita Mora's style  I love how cathartic her work is.