My pal Janine stopped by here on her way to work Monday morning, to borrow a piece of sticky tape and a ribbon — someone was retiring and she was in charge of getting the gift that everyone in the office had chipped in to buy. It was a little three-panel picture frame, really cute, but the real prize she wanted to show off was the gorgeous home-made wrapping paper!

She’d just sat down to wrap the gift late on Sunday evening when she realized there wasn’t a scrap of suitable wrapping paper in the whole house. And of course the stores were closed, so she couldn’t just go out and buy some gift wrap.

(Janine is never normally that disorganized, by the way — she said for me to be sure to tell you it was her daughter Carrie who used up all the paper on grad gifts!!)

Photo: dklimke

What to do?

When Tea Stains on Paper are a Good Thing…

The clever woman grabbed a tea bag — living in the country, we all have lots of tea bags in the pantry, it’s tradition! — and made a cup of tea.

She put it in the microwave, actually, and boiled it a little (since she wasn’t going to drink it) to hurry up the brewing process and make the tea good and strong.

Then she took a couple sheets of plain white office paper, the kind you would use for a printer or photocopier, and brushed the tea onto it with a small sponge. No need to try to get an even coat, she says — just splash down some random overlapping strokes of that lovely nostalgic sepia colour that tea staining will give… and let it dry.

Pioneer butterfly stamp: Amazon

Again, Janine hurried things up a little by gently pressing the paper between layers of paper towels, using just a barely warm iron to keep the paper from crinkling or scorching — though, come to think of it, a scorch-mark or two would just add to the old-fashioned look of it all.

When the paper was dry, or almost, she got out her scrapbooking supplies and went to work with a brown inkpad and a butterfly rubber stamp. Butterflies all over the paper, tone-on-tone in lovely subtle browns — nice!

We were thinking that, for a gift-giving occasion in the fall of the year, maybe for a Thanksgiving hostess gift or such, you could stamp on a pattern of leaves…

Anyway, Janine is one of those people who manage to think ahead and keep gift cards on hand, so that part wasn’t a problem. But she was out of ribbon, thanks to Carrie — and I only had some leftover from Christmas, printed ribbon with holly leaves on it. No raffia either, and not even a piece of good fat knitting wool (except a hideous orange, left over from making a clown wig… don’t ask!)

So she went through my junk drawer and found some ordinary brown package string, wrapped it three times around the little parcel, tucked a spring of dried flowers under the knot… and you know what? It looked just great!