Sloe Gin and Tea Bags!

Welcome to Magpieheaven where the kettle has boiled and the tea is brewing!  Or there is something a little stronger if you would prefer it! A few days ago I was really impressed by a beautiful face my talented friend, Lyn Tivenan had painted on a tiny tea bag! Back in the Summer Dominique, my friend Sue's daughter started a wonderful collection of tea bags for me and I had been using them for rubber stamping projects.

 Lyn's work, however, inspired me to try my own art on some of the Cranberry Black Tea ones. I am not such a talented artists as Lyn, but I do love creating faces. Here is the bag attached to a tiny tag with some PaperArtsy Satin Glaze. It's a light glaze so perfect for using with very delicate paper like tea bag paper or tissue. The tag is just a very inexpensive one from the shop Tiger. I distressed the tag first with some Tim Holtz inks in Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain.

Back in the Autumn we picked sloes and made our own sloe gin, so I decided to create this Sloe Fairy for a label. Her skin tones are reminiscent of the lichen and the moss in the woods where we go walking and there is also something of the 'nut brown maid' about her. I painted an area of light Opaque Fresco Finish paint in Vanilla and built up layers of translucent colours: Zesty Zing, Banana and Cherry Red. I also shaded some areas with Inktense colours in various greens, blues, browns and reds. Her little hat is a Red Lead stamp on another fragment of tea-bag paper. Her curls and furls of foliage I created with Pitt Pen doodling.

And to transform the bottle, I stamped this Lynne Perrella sun onto another tea-bag painted with a wash of Cherry Fresco

A teabag was used for the reverse side too with the same Red Lead stamp that I used for the hat. I also used stained fabric and lace painted with Heavy Gel Medium. I added Treasure Gold to this when it was dry.

Just a little alteration of the label with fragments of stamped tea bags completed the bottle's transformation.

I added some pearl pen accents and attached the label with a piece of hemp to create a rustic mood and remind me of those warm and sunny Autumn afternoons when we gathered the berries. Thank You for stopping by today and meeting the sloe berry fairy!