Making Your Own Tiles


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Once you have become addicted to tea bag folding you will more than likely want to try your hand at making special tiles that are your own.  There are many programs that are available that can easily help you make your own tiles.  Some do not take a lot of computer graphic program experience.  Designing can be as easy as using your Windows Paint Program although my experience with this was not optimum.

Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and Corel Draw

These are three of the better programs for designing tiles.  Many different effects can be used to make tiles very interesting and creative.  It takes a bit of a learning curve to do fancier tiles such as the split tiles but you will find many people interested in helping the graphically challenged tile makers accomplish their goals.  The Circle of Crafters tea bag forum is a great place to get tile making instructions.  Earlier versions of Paint Shop Pro can be found on the Internet free.  Once you get going, you can find many filters and plug-ins useful in making special tiles.

Silicon Mirror and Kaleidoscope Program

This program is extremely simple to use and turns parts of any picture into a kaleidoscope tile.  It can be downloaded here.  You can download an evaluation time limited copy and try the program out but it is only $12.U.S. to register it and is well worth the upgrade to a registered copy.  There are instructions should you need them.

Dazzling Reflections and Kaleidoscope Kreator

Both of these are available as trial versions.  Download Dazzling Reflections here and Kaleidoscope Kreator here.  Both of these programs have limitations but they do make good kaleidoscope pictures with more points and shapes than the Silicon Mirror program. They also cost between $35.-$40. U.S. 

Robyn's Tile Making Generator

Robyn has put together a website where everyone can go in and make kaleidoscope pictures.  It is possible to make 100 tiles from each of her kaleidoscope pictures.  She has good instructions on her site explaining how to make the tiles.

Rubber Stamps

There is a whole series of rubber stamps on the market that are used for tea bag folding.  Here are a few that I bought recently just to give you an example of how they turn out folded.  There is a seller that frequently has these stamps for sale on ebay and the seller's ebay store is alota rubber stamps.  She does a great job of colouring her stamped images to match. 

                 

Try stamping square stamps on vellum or embossing your tiles for different effects.  You may find that you have to heat set the ones stamped on vellum depending on the type of inkpad that was used.  A lot of different stamps can be used to advantage as long as you then cut the paper square and the stamp is in the same position on each paper.  Embossing would add an extra special dimension.