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Monday, May 7, 2012

No Sew Handmade Tea Bags with Personalized Tags!

This No Sew Homemade Tea Bag idea is a great idea for Mother's day, to a Mom or Grandma who LOVES tea or even for a Tea Lovers birthday! It's a neat personalized gift that the person can actually use and enjoy! BUT don't just stop at Moms.... My Dad LOVES Tea also... You can make these for Fathers Day/Birthday to your tea loving Dad!!!

Here is what you will need to make the Tea Bags:
  • Loose leaf tea 
  • A few fun pieces of Scrapbook paper (One design per type of tea)
  • Crochet thread or Embroidery Floss (any color)
  • Clean Lightweight Fabric (Cheesecloth, muslin, cotton, or in my case I used Chiffon)
  • Hot Glue Gun and glue stick
I was looking around at Loose Leaf  Tea and I ended up getting 5 different types of Teas at Whole Foods for just a couple dollars! They had a HUGE selection for a great price!

   

The next thing you will need to do is cut your fabric in 6 inch squares. It is ok if your line isn't perfect! It will still look good! Once you have all of your squares of fabric cut, lay them one at a time on a plate. Add about 1 Tablespoon of tea at the top and in the center.

Then start rolling the fabric!

When you stop, you will want your seem in the middle of the roll of fabric.

Then all you do is fold together and tie it tight with a piece if your thread. I cut my thread in 9 inch strips and it was the perfect length! 
There you have it! Your tea bags are now ready for their personalized tags!
   

The next step is to make your personalized tags... All I did was create a shape in Illustrator and typed in fun quotes and verses. For example, these tea bags are for both Grandmas, so I asked the kids what they wanted to say to them and typed it on the tag. When they drink their cup of tea, they can think of their Grandchild! You can also put fun facts like "Tea is Calorie-free"! Get creative with it!

Then I cut out the shapes and glued it to a piece of scrapbook paper. I only put a small line of glue on the bottom, you don't want to completely glue it down. Once you have glued the shape down, cut out around the shape again so you now have a pretty backing on your quotes!

Now its time to connect the tags to your tea bag. Just hot glue the string into the little opening!
   

 If you are giving different types of tea you could either write what it is on the tag or do something like this! I used a different type of backing for each type of tea and then made a little card to put in with the tea. The card will tell you what type of backing goes with what type of tea!

 Now that you are done with your tea bags you need some kind of box or package to put them in. I took advantage of Garage Sale season and found two cute plastic boxes with clear lids for 25 cents each. Before I found this, I was going to cut a cracker box in half and have the kids paint it and use that for the box or HERE is another cool idea I found on how to make a gift box out of a cereal box.

Anyways, I had my kids paint their boxes.

We added their handprints on a piece of paper with a quote from each. Then I painted Mod Podge over the outside and inside of the box to seal the paint and paper!
 Here is the finished gift box of tea!
What a sweet present for any tea lover!

5 comments:

  1. Seriously, Colleen, you have the greatest ideas. If I can find time, I may try to make these for our Mimi. I love Kiki's quote!

    Mia

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    1. I know aren't these fun!?!?! I had been looking at ideas of how to sew some... I like the idea of reusable tea bags made with beautiful fabric.... but without a machine it was going to take me TOOOOO long to make these for both Grandmas! Anyways, I know there are a lot of people who don't know how to sew out there so these are good for EVERYONE! =) Sorry I didn't get this post up sooner.... I busted through it this weekend to get it up!

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  2. Thank you! Just what I was looking for.

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  4. Hi Colleen, you have defined the steps in quite a manner and it is very useful for a person like who was on the hunt for a tea gift box. Actually, I was finding these for a friend of mine who just came to my city after several years to meet me. It was good to see that he liked it.

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