Homemade Tea Bags – The Perfect DIY Gift Idea

Huge thank you to my good friend Jessica for this awesome, and of so pretty, DIY gift idea.

My mother-in-law is impossible to buy for (like actually, seriously impossible). She’s very appreciative and grateful for everything, but finding something that she’ll use is a whole different ball of yarn. Add in the fact that we don’t have an unlimited budget, and a lot of the gifts in the Gollub house are going to be handmade this year and you’ve got a conundrum. I’ve made her scarves and mittens before so I wanted something different. This year she’s getting (shhh, no one tell her) handmade tea bags!

Making your own tea bags is a pretty simple process if you have some basic sewing experience, and let me tell you, they’re a heap of a lot cuter than other tea-based gifts (at least in my own, personal, non-biased opinion). All you need is some plain muslin (under $5/yard, and you can make about a gazillion from a yard), some loose tea, tags and some pretty string.

I grew up in the home of a quilter (who also kindly cut my fabric into even strips for me with her fancy rotary cutter) and while I am pretty hopeless at quilt making, I can sew a muslin bag like a boss. The quickest way to do it is to sew a long tube, cut that into tea-bag-sized pieces and sew one end.

Once you have the bags sewn, flip them inside out, and fill with your choice of loose tea. I know my MIL likes peppermint tea, so I made some of that, and also some chamomile and cranberry hibiscus. I was pretty generous with the tea, because nothing is worse than weak tea, and the holidays are no time to be chintzy!

Fold in the top corners to make a point, fold the point down and tack it shut , either by hand or using a sewing machine (I picked the latter because I didn’t feel like stabbing myself today), add your string and tag and tada! TEA!

It almost makes me want to start drinking the stuff.