Tea Darlings Are Snobs! - They bring their own teabags.

It all started after a trip to England in June 2025 with my daughter.  We had afternoon tea at The Wallace Collection in London and visited the Sally Lunn’s Historic Eating House & Museum, where I bought her brand of tea.

I became a little obsessed with the subject and started painting characters and giving them names and personalities.  I ended up creating a handmade art journal with the theme, "Tea Darlings Are Snobs!  They bring their own teabags."  I collaged three of the Tea Darlings onto this journal page.  I also changed out the painting over the fireplace, to show an aristocrat drinking tea.  Each has their own teabag.

You might have seen some of these Art Journal Pages in other posts, but this is the story behind the vision.

I soon had three handmade art journals I worked in - ranging from 5x7 to 9x11 on up to much larger.  This is half of the spread in the larger journal.  By working in three journals, I could simultaneously work on one, while the others might be drying.  I not only needed the Tea Darlings, but I also needed flowers and teacups.  I always go overboard!

This is the right side of the art journal spread.  Somewhere in the process, that began in the Summer of 2025, I thought I'll make downloadable printables, so you could use them too.  TIP:  This is optional; it all depends on your creation.  I did it above, but not below. Some of the flowers are really tiny here and to cut them out and have the "white" not show around narrow stems I didn't want the narrow parts to tear; so I painted a green wash over the stem area and it worked very well.

Not only did I paint some watercolor blooms with DIY Paint, but also some gouache blooms.  This is optional as well, the DIY Paint is plenty opaque without mixing a gouache together, but I think I am a little bit of a Mixologist DIY Paint Snob. - It's like what can it not do.  I painted the teacups and flowers with the DIY Paint gouache mixture too.  It's about all I use on paper now.

I even made these tiny teabags in most of the spreads for the darlings to carry.

These two images are a spread, left and right side, of an 5x7 art journal I made.  What's great about DIY Paint is -- the pages won't stick -- I seal them with our clear wax!

The blog about "Rebecca, Silvia & Rosa (Rosa above) goes into more details of how I created the spread above.  These tea darlings aren't just sipping tea, their resting in it, but they can come out to play.

I collaged Silvia into the art journal page with her teabag.  I added a teacup and some gouache flowers.  I think this is only two inches.  I didn't mind the white showing up on these yellow flowers here. It kinda goes; not like in a green garden where the white might be too bold.  Besides, you can always change the flowers out!

I went a little crazy on this art journal page; it's a 5x7.  More on another blog about this page; you can't miss it; I made it the top image.  I made the hat, the flowers, the cushions, her dress and the teacup.  The background is The Wallace Collection.

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So, I'll end with the art journal page below -  Here's a tea darling buying her own tea and taking it to a tearoom (Just Imagine!, Such Tea Snobs, but they are darling!)  I added all of those brands of tea onto teabag string.  I machine-embroidered her top (on the watercolor paper) and then machine- embroidered her skirt with lots of folds and huge pockets for her tea.  I also machine embroidered the tea darling slogan and used it as a sign in the Tea Room window.  Lastly, I added Daisy and Ivy - They are not only carrying a teabag, but there are some teabags in their flower bouquets.

I hope this brought a smile to your face!  Take a look around - all of the related blogs were posted within a few days of each other.  But there might be more to come! - Terri