The Devil is in the Details

Remember this awesome pioneer shirt I made!?

I decided it was a little too crispy, white. Despite the fact that it had tons of little stains on it, I wanted to give it that "ye olde" feel. So I tea stained it.

Here's what it looks like now....

Does this underwhelm you?

Let's try a close up!

 Okay, it hardly looks different in the pictures, but tea staining is an effective way to get a faded, worn look out of your converted modern clothes.

Tea staining really isn't that hard. Here are a few tips....

 A FEW TIPS

1. Use a black tea. Different teas will get you different colors, if you want your shirt to be subtly green, then go with a green tea. You can actually get A LOT of different colors using different types of tea. But if you want a brown or tan color,  go with a black tea.
2. The longer you leave your garment/ fabric in the tea soup, the darker it will be. Mine isn't very dark because I wasn't patient enough to leave it in... I think it was like 15-30 minutes.
3. It will look darker when it's still wet, it will lighten up when it dries. 
4. Rinse it with Vinegar in order to set the stain, other wise it will wash out.
   
   So now the question is "How do I do this?", well  here is the simple version (with pictures)

THE SIMPLE VERSION (WITH PICTURES)

1. Get yourself some tea.
2. Put 5-6 tea bags in a big pot filled with hot water and bring it to a boil. Let it boil for like 15 minutes.
3. Remove pot from heat, then submerge your garment and leave it there for about 30 minutes, or however dark you want it, see above tips.

I actually added the Vinegar during this phase, like 1/4 Cup.

You don't have to do this, it's just a fun added detail. If you want clearer instructions you can go use this how-to link.

Before

After