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If you're looking for a little help on how to tea dye, you've come to the right place. But first - why tea dye?

Sometimes I wake up way before dawn and I want to make a doll Battlestar Galactica a Christmas ornament right NOW! I live at least 40 minutes from the closest fabric store and they're not even open yet. While I might not always have commercially tea 1957 Topps baseball cards muslin on hand to make my bunnies and reindeers, I always have yards and yards of the regular bleached and unbleached muslin Monopoly I can convert to the perfect color Fatima tobacco cards tea dye.

Other Reasons to Tea Dye:
1. It's an easy and inexpensive way to mute down fabrics that look too bright or too new.
2. It's a way of bringing together unrelated fabrics.
3. It's a way to make any fabric look older or more antique.
4. It can mask minor stains.
5. The tea Mars Attacks process is more forgiving than mordant dying, although not as predictable.
6. The tea dye is non-toxic.
7. It doesn't irritate skin.
8. It can be done in stages: dye it, dry it and if you're not happy with the result, dye it again or bleach it out.

Tea Dye Quirks:
1. Tea dye only works on natural fibers such as cotton, silk, linen, wool. It should also work on satin (woven from silk) and rayon. I have never tried it on rayon, but in general, rayon takes dyes very well.
2. It can be difficult to get large pieces of fabric to tea dye evenly. But personally, I like the subtle mottled look and sometimes the uneven coloration is perfect for the project at hand.
3. Tea-dying will NOT take a white fabric to off white, eggshell or ecru. It is a color all its own -- a shade of rusty brown - although it can be very light.
4. One lovely trait of tea dying is that if you're not happy with the color, you can let it sit longer (for darker and more intense results) or you can mix a little bleach in the rinse water to lighten or remove the color.
5. Once the tea dye is set, it is semi permanent. That means that the color won't wash out easily, but it may come out when washed with a bit of bleach or an "oxy-clean" type product. While I wouldn't use tea dye for t-shirts or other clothing that will get washed frequently, it's perfect for the tenderly treated items like dolls and quilts.
6. Don't confuse tea-dying with tea staining. Tea dying is when an item will be submersed in a tea dye bath. Tea staining is done by applying the tea dye with a rag or paint brush.
7. Tea dyed fabric will dry lighter than it appears when wet.
8.Matching one batch of tea dyed muslin to another is almost impossible. Make sure you do enough yardage to complete your project.

Tea Dying Instructions:
First, gather the materials needed.
Natural fibered fabric or items (gloves, lace, floss)
Tea bags (orange pekoe or black pekoe. Use the cheapest bag tea that you can find)
Boiling water
Glass or stainless steel container

It's a good habit to start any dying project by washing the item/yardage with a mild detergent and rinsing it in cool water. This ensures that the sizing is washed out and won't inhibit the item from taking on the dye as evenly as possible. Let it sit in the cool water as you make the tea dying mixture.

Start by boiling water. A general rule of thumb is 4 cups of water for 1 yard of fabric. When the water boils, remove from the heat.

Add 2 tea bags for every 8 ounces of water. So for 4 cups of water, you'll need eight tea bags. That will make enough tea dye to tint one yard of fabric.

Let the tea bags soak for 5 minutes. DO NOT ADD THE FABRIC YET.

After the steeping, your tea dye concoction should be a very dark reddish brown. Pull out the tea bags. Depending on the quality of the bag, you can gently squeeze it to get out the last bit of tea, but be careful the bag doesn't break and drop bits of soggy leaves into your tea bath.

Take the wet yardage and gently squeeze out the excess. You don't want to add so much water that it dilutes the tea dye. Submerge it into the tea. For a more even dying, gently swish and swirl your fabric periodically. However, if you want your fabric to take the dye unevenly for a more interesting look, just leave it creased and wadded.

When you think your fabric is dark enough, remove it from the tea dye mixture and rinse in cool water. During the rinsing process, a lot of the color will flush out. The lovely thing about tea dying is that you can go ahead and drop it back in to the dye if you want it darker.

There are two ways to set the color.
1. Fill another container with fresh water. Make sure the container is big enough to hold your tea dyed fabric. For every gallon of water, add cup of white vinegar. Let your fabric sit in this mix for about 15 minutes. Then rinse the fabric and press it dry.
2. When you achieve the color you want, toss the fabric in the dryer set on its highest setting. When it's almost dry, remove it and smooth it out with an iron set at the hottest temperature the fabric can handle.

There is only one caveat that I've ever heard about tea dying: The pronounced amount of tannin in the tea dye can compromise the fibers of the fabric and it will rot away. The tannin will supposedly cut the longevity of the fabric to 30-40 years.

Now, if you're looking for a cute doll that has been developed specifically with beginners in mind, that uses tea dyed fabric, go to http://www.missbeesdesigns.com

It's unfortunate that more people don't know this, but toys and playing are absolutely vital for a person's development. This isn't only true for babies and children, it's just as true for adults. Yes, even adults need to take some time to goof off and indulge their curiosities now and then if they hope to continue growing and Iron Man as human beings (or have you never spent hours and hours researching random topics 1954 Bowman baseball cards the internet, just for fun?).

With the right developmental toys, playtime can be a whole lot more than something kids do for amusement. With the right toys, playtime can be a productive learning process. Every toy a child might become interested in has some potential to teach, as the child experiments and, well, toys around with it, but some of the best toys are the ones that capitalize on a child's tendency to experiment and aim to teach valuable life skills.

Most obviously, Gold Key comics all recognize on sight such educational wooden toys for babies and toddlers as the ring tower, which uses circular, wooden rings of various colours and sizes to teach children about, well, colours and sizes. These toys are excellent for babies and young toddlers still learning how to interpret and interact with the world around them on the most basic levels. There are also the traditional wooden shape blocks which can be dropped into a box through the corresponding holes, and various other classic toys used to teach basic interaction skills.

If you're looking for baby learning toys or toddler learning toys, you may also want to look into baby walking toys to encourage, well, learning to walk. Bath toys are another excellent form of educational baby toys to encourage basic life skills.

For the slightly older child, these kinds of toys are, of course, kind of boring. Once a child becomes interested in learning mathematics or learning to read, it's kind of hard to find tiny wooden blocks all that amusing anymore.

For the child who has surpassed the need for such basic learning toys, there are, of course, toys like Intellective toy laptops, which teach a variety of reading and mathematic skills, and of course, the classic puzzles and kids games, creative toys, such as Lego sets (check out the Star Wars lego toys if your kid's a real space nut), Duplos, Mega Bloks, and build-it-yourself castle and Star Trek movie house play sets. Sorry for the run on sentence, but the list really does go on and on.

For the yet MORE advanced child, who might consider all that stuff to be children's toys, between the ages of say, 8 and 12 (though each child advances at his own age, so use your own judgment), there are more advanced toys, like model kits and remote control cars toys. Such toys aren't generally seen as being educational, but they do require a Spider-Man movie of construction and maintenance (which can encourage the kind of habits most of us wish we had when we bought our first used car as a teenager).

It's important to know what kind of interactive learning toys are right for your child, based on their level of development and their own personal interests. Most toys will have a suggested age group, but that's all that that really is: A suggestion. Nobody knows your child like you do, so look to provide them with the toys that seem custom built to their specific needs, and remember that, as helpful as playing can be, the best way to nurture a child's growth is by taking time to help them learn basic life skills and indulging their curiosities.

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