I recently wrote an article about some of the different types of crafts or hobbies that are available. When doing some research to see how many I could find, I came across a couple that I had never heard of and really piqued my interest. Tea Bag Art and Temari Ball Art. Not having heard of either of these, I decided to see what I could discover and share what I found in case someone else wasn’t familiar with them either.
The first one was Tea Bag Art. I have a sister who has a great knack of using tea to stain different types of materials to make them look aged for some of her wall hangings that she does, so I assumed that was probably Tea Bag Art. Wrong. Yes, you can use tea for staining various projects, but don’t throw the used tea bags away. It seems like if you carefully take them apart by removing the staple, open the bag so that they will lay flat and let them dry properly, you can use them in a form of Origami and fold them into unique designs. Traditional tea bag folding creates more of a symmetrical designs then Origami. With some practice you will find that certain types of tea will stain the bag in different shades, so you can have some color variances without using any dyes. From what I could find, it seems to have Dutch origins where they actually used the tea bag folder instead of the actual tea bag. It seems like most of the art is used for decorating photo albums, scrapbooks, or anything your imagination can dream up. Another use I found for tea bags is to carefully open them up, add a little bit of dried lavender, reseal them and hold them under running bath water to add a lovely scent to your bath.
I found that Temari Ball art is art started by the Chinese and based on the Japanese use of old kimono silk to make toys for babies. They would start with a ball made of practically any substance from paper to wood chips and begin by completely covering the ball with thicker threads and them using thinner threads to give shape and texture to it. When the tradition started, mothers would place a small piece of paper inside the ball with a goodwill wish on it for her child and then start lovingly wrapping the ball with the brightly colored kimono silk threads. Receiving a Temari Ball is considered a symbol of loyalty and great friendship and should be a very cherished gift. It is amazing how beautiful a Temari Ball can be by simply wrapping different colored threads around a ball.
I hope you have enjoyed a brief touch on these two unique crafts. I now have added two more things to my “bucket list” of craft projects to try when I retire.