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!

Simple & Fun Accessory for your little Spiderman

Here is a simple, fun, and cheep idea that you can use as an added accessory to your child's Super Hero wardrobe! Especially if you have a child that loves Spiderman! 

All you need is a pack of hairnets! It's about $1.50 at Walmart for a two pack!

All you have to do is cut off the two metal clamps on the hairnet and it opens like the picture on the right!

   

 Then let your little one go WILD with it! They can throw it ALL over the house.... It won't knock over any furniture because it's such light material! Also, because of the material, it gets stuck to things that you throw it on! See how excited my daughter got when it stuck to the deck post outside!

      

 My son even came up with this idea to pull a string from the hairnet and wrap it around your fingers....

Then when you throw it, you can pull it back!

***This could also be a fun and cheap accessory to a superhero birthday party!

Baby Q invites, Personalized Cupcake Toppers, and Tiger Cake

I have waited long enough to show you guys a few more things I created for my Tiger theme baby shower. First of all, it was coed so we used the theme of a BaBy Q.  This is just a fun BBQ, with all of your friends to enjoy yourself and in celebration of baby to come! Here is the cute wording I used in the invitation I made!

I also wanted to show you a great idea that you can use for any celebration to come! I was researching tiger cupcakes and decided it would be so much easier to make whatever kind of cupcakes I wanted and then add the decorations this way! It's so simple to make your own personalized cupcakes with these cute toppers. All you need is A few wooden skewers, some scrapbook paper, a hot glue gun, and your printer at home!

I first created as many circles as I could to fit a normal sheet of paper. Then add whatever image you want on your cupcakes. This could be the theme, your child's name, monogram, age, etc. The possibilities are endless with these! Then cut out your circles. As you can see I also made a third set of circles for the backing which are a little larger than the circles with the tigers and monograms on them.

   

Cut your skewer in four pieces. Then hot glue the skewer between the two circles of paper!

   

 These personalized cupcake toppers are so CUTE and so EASY for any type of party!

Lastly, I wanted to share with you an easy way to make a tiger cake! Since I put a lot of work into my cupcakes, they were carrot cake with maple cream cheese icing (No white sugar or white flour), I decided to use a box marble cake with pre made chocolate icing! It was so much fun to add the tiger stripes in orange icing, you can't really go wrong on the stripes.... You could switch this and make your icing orange and your stripes with chocolate but I was trying to get the least food coloring possible! =) Also I think its fun to have reverse stripes!

I seriously LUCKED out and found this AWESOME tiger at a garage sale for 25 cents the day before the BBQ!!! It makes for a great topper! They also have plastic animals at the dollar store every once in a while and that's a great deal considering I looked at buying one new and it was half this size for 6 dollars!!! YIKES!

Here is the inside of the cake! Tiger striped even inside! Hope this helps you get creative for your next party without spending a fortune! =)

Monster Tooth Pillow & Tooth Holder

April 24th, 2012 My Brenden, 6 years old, lost his FIRST tooth!! This is very exciting because he has been waiting & asking about this for over a year!!! 

He told me that he wanted to keep his tooth. I told him that he would have to write a note to the Tooth Fairy if he wanted to keep it. So, ALL BY HIMSELF HE WROTE THIS!!! =) 

"I want to keep my tooth, Please bring the Captain America Lego Set."

on the other side of the note he wrote,

"For the Tooth Fairy, I Love You!"

 

 I had to explain to him that the Tooth Fairy isn't Santa and normally she brings money or a little treat, NOT lego sets! Otherwise, this would have cost me a FORTUNE!!! =)

This got me thinking about what traditions we want to start with the "Tooth Fairy" and crafts that go along with it! First of all, I wanted to make something special that he can put his notes and teeth in at night before bed AND I also needed to come up with a little container for him to keep his teeth in.

I found a cute idea for a Monster Tooth Pillow on Pinterest but all of them give patterns for you to sew with a machine. I am not really a sewer and I'm sure a lot of you aren't also... so I will show you how I made the pillow with a simple needle and thread! First you need a pillow! I was going to look at garage sales to recover a small pillow but then I remembered my son has this one hanging on his door and it's PERFECT for this craft!!!

 I choose one of his favorite colors in felt and just recovered the front of the pillow. I just turned in the felt and stitched it to the rope edging!

 Here is a close up of one side stitched down!

 Here is a picture of it fully covered! SO CUTE and SO EASY!

 Next, you will need to make the pocket that the tooth & note go into at night and where the Fairy will leave the money and or small treat! This is the monsters mouth! You have a piece of felt in the same color and you cut out "teeth" with white felt. Simply hand stitch the white felt to the pocket. When you are done, simply hand stitch the pocket to the bottom of the pillow, just like the first piece of felt, to make the mouth.

   

Have your child choose a color of felt for the eyes and two fun buttons. Cut two different size circles out with the felt and hand stitch it where you want it, then add the buttons! I still can't believe I made this when I look at it! SO CUTE and SO EASY!!! My son LOVES it and even named his monster "Toothless".
Now whenever your child loses a tooth you can either put the monster pillow under their pillow OR have it just hang on their doorknob.... I think the doorknob is a lot easier because there is no chance of waking your child up! =)

Now moving on to the Tooth Holder we made! All you need is a baby food jar (or even a small mason jar), small ripped pieces of tissue, and Mod Podge.

 Cover the top of the jar with tape so it doesn't get covered in tissue and Mod podge. Then simply have your child paint on the Mod Podge like glue and add the tissue all over.

   

 I added a cute tooth reading "Brenden's Teeth" to the front of the jar and then we covered everything in Mod Podge to seal it!

When the Mod Podge dries it looks like a stained glass jar! 

There you have it, Two fun and easy crafts that will help create memories and traditions in your family for all of those lost teeth!