Tea My Valentine! DIY Reusable Tea Bags!

Valentine's Day is coming up.
And even when I've been single, I've never hated the holiday simply because I believe that you're supposed to tell the multiple people in your life that you love them and not just your significant other.
To me, this makes Valentine's Day more special.
And yeah, it's corny, but it's also important to really tell the people in your life that you love them.
Not that you shouldn't be doing this all the time already, but this holiday is a good excuse to shower the people you love with extra extra extra attention.
A little like Christmas in that sense.
ANYWAYS,
This year, I decided to make some reusable tea bags and gather some tea together for a few near and dear in order to ask them to "Tea My Valentine"
Yup. I just went there.
Making the reusable tea bags was really easy and cost about 6 dollars per person. However, if you have muslin and embroidery floss and have loose leaf tea you'd like to share, this project could cost you basically nothing.
Here's the lo-fi low down on the how to:

Reusable Tea Bags

Supplies:

-Sewing machine (or, you could sew by hand, it'd just take longer)

-at least a 3.5x2.5 rectangle of wide-weave muslin (this will get you one tea bag)

-cotton thread or hemp or ribbon...something "stringy" to use at the drawstring for the bag

-scissors

-ruler

-pencil/chalk

-embroidery floss and needle (this is optional of course, you don't really need to embroider the bags, but it is fun!)

Steps:

1) Gather materials

2) Using a pencil or chalk and a ruler, draw out a 3.5 by 2.5 rectangle on your muslin. Mark where 3 inches is. You'll be folding the extra half inch over your "drawstring" when you sew. Cut it out that snazzy shnazzy rectangle! (Note! A nomal index card is 3x2.5, which makes for a good template!)

Step 2 (I used an index card as my template)

  3) Cut about 12 inches of drawstring off of its original source and lay it on the edge of your rectangle (which should be wrong side up) length wise. Fold .5 inches of the length of the rectangle over the drawstring and pin it down. I used hemp in case anyone was wondering.

Step 3

 4) Coax your temperamental sewing machine into doing you a favor by please please letting you sew a seam over the .5inch fold. Be careful not to snag your string! And if you are afraid of snagging it, you can always sew and then push your string through the opening instead. I just don't have the patience for that.

Step 4

                5) Fold the soon to be holder of all teas worthy of your nearest and dearestest's in half so you have a square. Sew around the edges until it's all connected. Remember to do this with the wrong side facing you, the next step is to turn it inside out.

Step 5 completed! And even after a tension check, it still came out all wonky. Sewphie has an attitude problem.

6) Turn it inside out.

7) Tea bag! Yay! Now you can embroider it if you want to or make a ton more! Or whatever!

Finished tea bag with a (poorly) embroidered cat! Meow!

There you have it, folks. 

You can also purchase reusable cloth tea bags at some grocery stores or tea shops if you'd just like to embroider them or if you just like the idea of filling the tea bags with loose leaf and don't want to make them. I'm not your mother, do what you want and remember to tell your friends that even though they may drive you crazy and force you to watch the L-word with them, that they are still near and dear to your heart. Worthy of hand embroidered tea bags.

Tea mine.

Like "Be mine"?

I'm done.

Love,

          Neffie