Mother's Day: DIY tea bags

Show your Mum some love this Mother's Day with these cute personalised tea bags.

My Mum loves tea so I thought these would be a perfect little gift. I love the personal touch and every time she has a cup she can read the quotes, I hope they will make her smile.  Each element of this project is totally customisable so you will be able to tailor it to your mum a friend or whomever it's for. You will notice that I decided on a purple colour scheme throughout as this is my mum's favourite colour, and mine if you hadn't guessed.

Before I start this is just a little warning that it is going to be a long post - please bear with me until the end and you will have the perfect personalised gift for a tea lover.

For this project you will need:

Loose leaf tea
Flavourings: 1 Cinnamon Stick, 1 Star Anise, 15 Cloves, 1/2tsp Mixed Spice, 1/2tsp cinnamon
Coffee Filters
White Card
White Paper
String
Glue
Staple

First to make up the tea, I decided to try making my own version of a Chai or Spiced tea. For this you will need to mix together; 6 tsp loose leaf tea,  1 crumbled cinnamon stick, 1 crumbled Star Anise,  15 crushed cloves, 1/2 tsp mixed spice and 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon.

I also just used loose leaf tea for a black tea. Then for my final tea I recently found this gorgeous apple and cinnamon tea from Teapigs so I will be packaging them up too. That will be the three types of tea ill be using but you could absolutely experiment with different flavours. Perhaps vanilla, floral or even a fruit tea.

Next to make the tea bags, you will need coffee filters, I used Rombouts Coffee Filter Papers from Sainsburys.  You will also need string and a stapler. To make the teabags you will need to follow along carefully to the steps below to ensure the filter is sealed so no tea escapes. It seems complicated but I assure you its pretty easy once you have done one or two.

1. Take a cone shaped coffee filter.	2. Cut away the seal on the two sides
3. Unfold the filter	4. Fold over the arched side (1) to join the point (2)
5. Fold over both wings (3) to cover the arch to create fold (A)	6. Unfold both wings and fold these in half so the edge (B) lines up with the crease (A)  you have just made
7. Now fold the wings back over the arch, they should now be half the size.	8. Fold the filter in half with the wing edges facing out

9. Now create a concertina type fold to make the base of the bag.

10. Fold it in half so the wings are now facing in.	11. Cut the excess paper from the top.
12. Fold the top corners down to form a triangle.	13. Fold the point of the triangle over.
14. Undo your folds and fill each side with your loose leaf tea. About a teaspoon per bag.	15. Close it back up ensuring the tea stays  in the two separate sides.
17. Place one end of the string at the top of the bag in the middle.	18. Fold down the top corners to form a triangle over the string.
19. Then fold the point of the triangle over.	20. Staple closed, securing the string in place.

Now for the tags.


Choose a tea tag and cut it out, then fold it in the middle. This is shown by the white line in the first tag pictured above. Glue this to the end of the string to identify the type of tea. These tea tags are totally customisable, I have written the type of tea on one side and then a tea quote on the other side.

 


Now for the envelopes.


Cut these out from the template and fold along the pale lines. Thinly glue the edges of the two long sides, then pop in your tea bag and seal the flap down with a dot of glue. Again these are very customisable.



Finally the boxes, I decided to make separate boxes for the different flavours. Make sure to print these on card so the boxes are sturdy.

Cut along the dotted lines and fold along the white lines. Then glue the tabs inside the box. As I am sure you have guessed very customisable again, you could even make a larger box to fill with assorted tea flavours.

Pop in your tea bags and there you have it, your very own DIY teabags with customisable tags, envelopes and boxes.

Serve with some biscotti and you have a wining combination. Keep an eye out for my biscotti recipe coming soon.

Sending lots of love to my Mum and yours! I know I don't say it enough and we shouldn't restrict ourselves to one day of the year to tell our Mum's how amazing they are because Mum you absolutely are!!!

What will you be making for your Mum this Mother's Day?

Mel xoxo