Saturday, September 17, 2011

Teabag Folding - Another option for Trees

Ok - so apparently I'm enthralled with this technique, despite the dyslexic tendancies.  I saw some pix of these styles using the image views that Bing! provides in your search results.  So, without much ado, began cutting and folding.  These are made with 2" squares and you need 10 of them for each tree.  If you pick an obvious stripe like I did, make sure you fold them all the same way to keep the symetry of the tree visible.  Symetry and precision is the key to success with this technique. 

How you lay them down makes the difference in the look.  Note the darker colored tree below has three tiers that gradually get larger as you go down.  The other has three as well, but the third one is more shallow than the one above.  Either way I think they turned out pretty cool.   I tried to get an angle shot so you can see the dimention of them.  These trees are mounted on 5x7 cards (that's either A6 or A7, I can never remember).  The ones from the previus post were A2. 

The nice thing about this tea bag business is the finished product folds flat enough for you to mail them without a lot of hassle.  When the receiver opens them up, they should pop right back up.  How many of you out there have mailed something with a little dimension to it, only to have the post office mangle the living crap out of it? 

Tips for foiling the post office mangler:
  1. Load the card into the envelope with the brad or bling NOT under the stamp if at all possible.  Go so far as to design the card so there is no embellishment in the upper right quadrant of the card.  Those automatic cancelling machines are mean as hell. 
  2. Make your own envelope out of something heavier than text weight paper.  I use 65lb test card stock (cover wieght is another name for it) for most of mine.  It does the trick.  Most cardstock paper you buy is cover wieght. 
  3. If you have the time to wait in line - hand cancelling at the counter is always an option.

Click an image to embiggen - Enjoy!  - AMK





1 comment:

Andrea said...

Love them!

Oh, and yeah, the post office has never mangled anything I've ever sent you. ;)