Tea Bag Pocket Tutorial

  Here is the first project that I completed after having last Friday morning to myself....no errands, both boys at school, no service people scheduled....it was wonderful.  I made some of these tea bag sleeves a while ago as little treats to tuck into my customers orders.  Several people asked if I would put up the instructions on my blog and I said I would....well months later I've finally kept my word.  It's also a lot easier since I got my new Simply Scored tool from Stampin' Up.  It's so easy to adjust the line markers and score away without having to keep measuring for each piece of paper!  I love that it has the 1/8" marks; that makes it very easy for math challenged people like me! 

  When I first made these I followed another tutorial that used a larger piece of DSP for the inside.  I think I could only get one tea bag holder out of each 12X12 sheet of DSP using the measurements given in that tutorial.  Well I don't know about you but I'm way too cheap to buy 2 whole packs of DSP just to make these.  So I fiddled with the measurements and now I've got a design that allows me to make 4 sleeves out of 1 sheet!  Woo-Hoo!  You can get 3 of the outside covers from one piece of 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock too so this is a pretty economical project if you're making a lot of them.

  To make a tea bag sleeve/holder/packet/pocket etc. you will need the following supplies:

1 piece of cardstock cut at 7 3/4" x 3 1/4"
1 piece of Designer Series Paper (DSP) cut at 7" x 4"
Sticky Strip
Scoring tool (I used the Simply Scored)
About 20" of ribbon of your choice (I used 1/4" Whisper White Grosgrain)
2 tea bags
circle punch
Stamps & embellishments of your choice for decorating the front cover (I used Morning Cup for this project.  See the very end of this post for specific supplies for my sample Tea Bag Sleeve)

Step 1: Score your cardstock at 3 1/2" & 4 1/4".  I set my Simply Scored markers and scored all of my cardstock at once and then set it aside.

Step 2:  Line your DSP up so it is up and down the long way (see photo).  Move your markers and score at 1/2" & 3 1/2".

Step 3:   Turn the DSP 90 degrees and score at 3 1/8" & 3 7/8"

Step 4:   Pre-fold all the score lines on both the cardstock and the DSP.

 

Step 5:  Fold the open ends of the DSP together so they line up.  Insert the open end part way into your circle punch and punch a half circle.  This will give you cute little openings to make it easier to pull the tea bags out of the pockets.

 

Step 6:  Adhere your Sticky Strip to the tabs on the back of the DSP. 

Step 7:  Take your red backing off of the Sticky Strip, turn it over so the Sticky Strip faces the inside of your cardstock cover.  Carefully line up the center score marks of both pieces of paper and adhere.  Be careful of your alignment...once the Sticky Strip touches the cardstock you can't change it!

 Step 8:  Slide your tea bags into the pockets and then add your ribbon tie.  I use a small amount of SNAIL directly on the ribbon to hold it in place.  It takes about 20 inches of ribbon and that gives you a fair amount to tie a nice bow, trim the ends and then still have enough to re-tie so it can be refilled and regifted.

 

Step 9:  Stamp and embellish the front however you wish.  Give it to someone and make their day!

 

 Here is one that I made for my mom to give the ladies that come to the church quilting group she organizes.  I made a bunch of these with the Sew Suite stamp set and coordinating DSP.  She said they always have tea when they sew so she thought they would be the perfect little item to tell her group thanks for all their hard work making the charity quilts.

And the inside view:

 

Here are the ones I made for my stamping ladies a while back:

 

And last but not least the "group" shot!

  I hope you find this tutorial useful.  If you have any questions be sure to leave a comment and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.  

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Morning Cup

Ink: Basic Black, markers - Pool Party, Poppy Parade, Peach Parfait

Paper: Peach Parfait, Pool Party, Whisper White, Pool Party In Color DSP


Accessories: Simply Scored, grosgrain ribbon, scallop circle punches, circle punch, sticky strip, dimensionals, word window punch, mini clothespins