Tea Bag Travel Holder

Hi y'all! In this post I want to show you how I made my "Tea Bag Travel Holder" for next to nothing! This is what I made for Christmas gifts this year and something I made for myself as well. I'm trying to be healthier and figured Green Tea might be a good way to start. lol. Besides the gagging response that the tea has on me, I'd say it's going pretty good...

I love to have accessories to go along with everything! When I started drinking tea I just had to have some cute little holder for the bags. I went online to see what was out there and found something similar to what I ended up making but the price was outrageous! They wanted over $30. for one!! So I took a good look at the one for sale and went to work making one of my own.

I hope you enjoy!

(NOTE: Picture 1 & 2 are machine sewn and picture 3 &4 are hand sewn so this project can be done either way. The hand sewn tea bag holder took longer but turned out lovely. Enjoy.)

(You can find this project and many more on a site called Instructables.com HERE. It's a project sharing site and has lots of cool contests and projects!)

What you will need for this project:

Here's a list of what you will need..

• Fabric
• Ribbon
• 6 Tea Bags
• Sewing Machine (Or needle and thread for hand sewn)
• Measuring & Cutting devices
• Straight Pins

Yep.. That is it.

Measure and Cut.

Get your fabric out and fold it in half. Lay your tea bags out 3 on either side of the fold long ways to measure where your other folds need to be. You will want to space your bags just enough for your thread to go down. You want it to be snug so your tea bags don't fall out during transit. (Your measurements will be different depending on the size of your tea bags.)

Once you have your bags laid out turn your fabric up from both the top and bottom to cover your tea bags.

(HINT: If you measure out your fabric right you can just fold the bottom and top of the fabric to the center (as seen in photo three) then fold in half (as seen in photo 4) and iron. I love to iron my fabric folds because it's easier to sew. It keeps its shape.)

Iron your fabric folds and cut your notches!

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 Photo2

 Photo3

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 Photo5

 Photo6

 Photo7

Before you pin your fabric you will want to iron your folds.

• Pic 1 you will see me beginning to iron my fabric.
• Pic 2 shows the finished first ironing folds.
• Pic 3 is how yours should look after ironing your first folds.

Now you will need to fold and iron where your seam will be. Fold about a quarter inch in on all sides and iron.

• Pic 4 shows what your project will look like once the seam folds are ironed.

I normally like to cut the corners down and notch the folds along the seam so it will lay flat and look better.

• Pic 5 shows what your corners should look like
• Pic 6 shows you the notches I cut on my seam folds. 3 on each side on fold.

When this is done you will want to fold your entire tea bag holder down the way it will look once finished and iron it all flat.

• Pic 7 is what mine looks like once I've ironed it all flat and then opened it up to see the inside where the pockets will be.

Pin & Sew

Go ahead and pin your project in place.

Arrange your tea bags inside and pin in between each. This will be where you will sew to make each pocket.

• Pic 1 shows what mine looks like once this is done.

Get to sewing! Sew the left then the right side. Then sew in between the tea bags where your pins are. I did each individually.

• Pic 2 is the way it will look once done with this step.
• Pic 3 is the outside.

Adding the Ribbon!

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 Pic2

Pic3

 Pic4

pic5

I love fancy and shimmery ribbon! I went for a large red ribbon for this project to fancy up my tea bag holder. This ribbon was wrapped on a Christmas gift one of my friends gave me and I just couldn't throw it out! So now it will be with me always!

Lay your ribbon in the middle of the "outside" fabric and pin in place.

• Pic 1 demonstrates this. The "outside" is the fabric that will show when the holder is closed.
• Pic 2 is the ribbon pinned.

Sew along the middle fold of your fabric from one side of the ribbon to the other. Now sew a few stitches on each end of your ribbon to hold it to the fabric.

• Pic 3: You see here where I am getting ready to sew the ribbon to my fabric along the ironed fold.
• Pic 4 shows my finished ribbon. The small stitches on both sides of the ribbon to keep it in place along with the stitching across the ribbon/ down the ironed fold.

FINISHED!

That's it! All done! You did wonderful! Thanks for checking this out and I hope you enjoyed!


(You can find this project and many more on a site called Instructables.com HERE. It's a project sharing site and has lots of cool contests and projects!)

Kids Ice Boat made of ice!! Free and Fun!

Today my absolutely wonderful six year old son came to me and said that he was bored and wanted to go back to school. (It's Christmas break for almost another week!) This both shocked me and made me a little sad. I must have been enjoying his company way more than he was mine. I can’t remember EVER wanting to go to school. I’d have stayed home with my boring mom as opposed to sitting one second longer than I needed in school! It crushed me to think that I was more boring than my mother!

I asked him if he wanted to paint and he just shook his little blonde haired head and looked so close to tears it broke my heart. I thought about driving him to his school so he could see that no-one was there but worried he’d want to stay anyway and that would have crushed my spirit completely! So instead I decided to bring out the big guns and dig in my wasteland of childhood memories to find something that amused me growing up. Considering I grew up very poor there wasn’t much that we could do. We were so poor we couldn’t even afford to live on the wrong side of the tracks! Lol. But after a few minutes of quiet contemplation I came up with some pretty good ideas and this was the winner!

This is simple and low waste along with being free which was why I can remember so much about it! I’m guessing it was my mother’s “go to” game when we drove her nuts! Ha!

(You can find this and many more of my projects on a site called Instructables.com HERE. It's a site where people share things they have made.)

Here's what you will need:

• plastic water bottle or small plastic cup
• toothpick
• paper
• scissors

Also a way to freeze the water. I used my freezer.

Time to cut!!

Let's grab your plastic water bottle and cut all the way around about an inch and a half from the bottom. This will be what we use to freeze our ice boat bottom.

Cut a triangle out of your paper to use as the sail. This can be cut with scissors or torn by hand. Either way looks great!


AND THE FLAG

Time to make the flag out of the triangle of paper and the toothpick.

Take your triangle of paper and push the toothpick through the bottom and top one time. Look at my photo to see how. It's easy and cancels out the need for tape.

Make a base for your flag to freeze upright.

Now this is where my brain started to smoke! I had to figure out an easy way to keep the toothpick flag upright in the water while it was freezing. I decided low tech was best so that my son could do it on his own whenever he wanted.

Take what's left of your paper and fold it in half, then in half again to make a nice square. Next you will fold up the open sides as seen in my photos. This will keep your paper from opening in the freezer and moving your flag.

Fill your cup/plastic water bottle bottom with water halfway.

Poke the toothpick through the middle of the square paper and sit on top of your cup. Push your toothpick to the bottom of your cup so flag will be sturdy once water freezes.

Place in freezer until frozen!! Take out and enjoy! You can make several and have a race in the sink or if you are close to a body of water then have a race day out doors!

I love FREE fun and sharing cool kid projects with other likeminded people! I hope you enjoyed this and pass it on to others!

Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away With Me!

Here's a photo of my little guy having fun with his Ice Boat! It's winter outside so we decided not to go to the beach or river and just have fun in the back-yard! He put on his turtle neck shirt and sweatpants and pretended to be at the ocean! I love imaginations! They are also FREE! lol

*Some variations are:

• Add food coloring to the water. This is great because you can have a red boat or blue or green or yellow… you get the jest.
• Add a favorite little toy to the water before freezing! This should be done if you plan on staying home and playing in the sink or tub. I’d hate for a favorite toy to be lost at sea!
• Make a bigger ice boat by freezing a bowl of water with a wooden dowel as a flag pole over night! Hours of fun the next day and bigger target for great photos!
• Add a finish line. I am going to do a post showing how I made the one seen in these photos. It should be up soon. Maybe by tomorrow and was also free to make!

If you have any suggestions please comment below. I would love to have lots of new ways to play FREE ice boat games with my kiddosJ