A tea a day keeps... You happy during Christmas time

I'm a tea drinker - hence the name of this blog - and so are my bestie and my mum. So I decided that they need an advents calendar with teabags. My bestie got a red-green-gold one hanging on a long band while my mum who loves blue obviousely got a blue one with silver one in a box.

I know it is a bit too late now for this year but I post the tutorial nevertheless. If I remember I'll post it again next year in early November. And maybe somebody still needs a last minute idea. 

The bags are quite easy to make though cutting, folding and glueing takes some time. You'll need: gift wrapping paper (70*80 cm), 2 sheets of coloured crafting paper, star shaped stickers, gold or silver pen. For the box version: one small metal or cardboard box or a matching bowl or flower pot or whatever. For the hanging version: ribbon, cellotape
Tools: Scissors, ruler, pen, glue, set square

Cut the wrapping paper in 10*23 cm big pieces. Fold in the middle of the long side. Fold and glue 1 cm on each short side to the back and let the glue dry well. Fold 3.5 cm from the open side down so that the bag is 8*8 cm. Mark the middle of the open side and cut from there down to the folded line on each side. If you use paper that is white on one side make sure that there is no white visible when this triangle is folded down.
When you go for the hanging version cut gift ribbon in pieces, fold them in the middle and glue to the back of the bags with cellotape.
Fill the bags with tea and close them with a star shaped sticker. Cut the tags out of the coloured paper. I used cookie cutter for the motives, though you could also do it freehand or make a cardbord pattern. Write the numbers on the tags with a gold or silver pen.
For the hanging version: Cut holes into the tags, fix them to the gift band and hang all the bags on a long fabric band.
For the box version: Stick the tags to the bags with another sticker and fill them into your box.

 Step by step

 Sorry for the bad quality. Winter, artificial light, darkness and so on...

I don't think many people have 24 different teas at home... So three ways of getting so many tea bags.
1. Look out for sampler boxes. For example Twinings has boxes with 5 different "plain" or flavoured black tea (5 bags for every flavour, so you have something to try too) Health food stores also often have boxes with different herbal teas and if you don't have any tea at all, look out for tea advents calendars.
2. Ask friends to give you a teabag each of three or four different teas. If you ask a group of friends you'll soon have a lot different tea
3. Make teabags out of your loose tea. You can find a tutorial here

My first sewing project in years

I really want to be creative at the moment and one of the things I wanted to do is sew something. I found a tutorial for a pillow includinc zipper a while ago and decided to make some for my sofa. Though then my sister told me that her boyfriend loves to open and close the zipper of his favorite pillow while watching telly. A while later an idea was born; a pillow with a zipper just for fun and a part that can be removed with buttons. And a great idea for me to practice buttonholes and zippers as I haven't used the sewing machine much since I left school.

He is a typical boy (though turning 23) and loves cars, so I decided on this car design. It took me quite a while to sew it as I had to do the side with the zipper twice as it didn't worked the first time. And the button holes turned out to be a nightmare too, as the machine should actually save the size of the button hole till you switch it off, so you just have to do one properly and then the rest should go automatically. But didn't.... It isn't perfect in any way, though I really tried my best. And really enjoyed sewing! Should do it more often!

 Front side with the extra part

 Front side without the extra part

Back side with zipper

Lea Lemons spa day

Tonight I decided to indulge myself a bit. Though, do I really need more indulgence after an evening with my best friend? Two episodes of Downton Abbey, countles cups of tea, pizza and our stitching made our evening. Yes, we do have a problem with keeping our hands quite while watching TV, so we do some multitasking in order to get our christmas crossstitching thingies done before end of November.

But back to topic. I came home and had the sudden feeling that I'd like to have a shower and then treat myself with some bodylotion and stuff. The full program, or at least the part of it you can do in half an hour or so and only with lemon-cosmetics. Lemon body scrubb by The Body Shop, body lotion and hand cream by Crabtree&Evelyn and a facial mask by Yves Rocher. Oh, and of course some tea, Raspberry and Lemon.  While I put together my sour spa program I had a flash of creativity. Halloween is coming closer, so why not practice with lemons instead of pumpkins...? Don't laugh, arts were never my strong point...!

Can you keep a secret? I was so busy with all my doodeling and lemon-carving that I completely forgot about my spa-plans and now it is too late for today.... I will have to postpone it and give it another go tomorrow evening...! With my favorite lemon-song of course; Lemon Tree by Fools garden