Tea Staining for a Vintage Look

I am working on a custom order for a Christening gown and the trims the client selected only came in white so I did a little research and decided to give tea staining a whirl......

 



I think it turned out beautifully!!!!  The before and after makeover :)

First I started with a HUGE pot. (This is my jambalaya pot but it is also good for this project!)  I filled it 1/3 of the way with water and added 12 tea bags and set it on the stove to heat to just before boiling. I didn't let it boil because I didn't want the tea bags to burst and have tea granules in my water.



 

While this heated, I took a large, plastic bowl and filled it partially with water and a couple of Tablespoons of white vinegar.  (I didn't measure precisely, just a splash or two:))



 

Lay a towel out to absorb the liquid without "wadding" your trim or fabric. Get a pair of tongs and you are ready to begin.

I tested a small piece of each of my trims prior to dumping the whole lot of it into my tea.  In my case I had Swiss insertion, edging and entredeaux. I set the timer on the stove originally to 2 minutes and checked it to see if it was the right shade after drying it.  It wasn't so I dunked it again and left it for longer.  Turns out 3 minutes did the trick for my particular shade this time.



 

 

I also decided I needed a larger, more absorbent towel so I grabbed a bath towel for the next dunking.

A little scary dropping 5 yards each of that expensive trim into a pot of tea.....



 

A little gentle stirring to ensure all parts of the trim were covered,

and then I removed it from the tea and doused it into my bowl of water/vinegar solution to set the "stain".  (Amusing since usually I'm trying to get the stain out....sorry no pic on this step)  I let it sit about 5 minutes before moving it to the towel to blot it gently.



 

I then painstakingly ironed it while wet to further set the color and make sure after it dried it was still the color I needed and didn't need redoing.

I cut a piece of leftover foam board and began to wrap the trim around it as I ironed so it didn't wrinkle from pooling on the floor while I worked with the wet end. (ugh...my ironing board looks terrible;/ might be time for a new one!)

 

It took very little time to do all three trims, most of it was spent ironing, but now I'm ready to begin the project!