We recently saw a post over on the Papercraft Inspirations facebook page about their latest issue which includes details about the art of Tea Bag Folding, there is an article in the magazine by paper crafter Julie Kirk from the fantastic blog Notes on Paper. It looks like a facinating papercraft technique to add a beautiful and intricate design to your cards and we think they would also look great added to a diy gift box, or pretty much any pretty paper craft project as a decorative feature.

Tea Bag Folding - The Paper Art Studio

We have been scouring the internet for useful tutorials and video demonstrations for creating these lovely designs and hope that some of you may be tempted to give it a go and share your results with us, we love seeing your makes. Have you tried it before - we had a comment on our Facebook page from Mary Drew (see embedded post below) - "Tea bag folding was used a lot when I first started crafting over 10 years ago, I found it too fiddly for me and used to throw all the wonky folded bits in the bin. x" - it sounds as though it can take some time and patience to get a really crisp result - but worth the effort!

Tea Bag Folding Instructions

This useful video shows you step by step how to create a Tea Bag 'Medallions' as they are called. You will benefit from having a bone folder and using light weight paper, patterned paper looks great and you can print your own onto our 100gsm Plain White Paper or any of our other lightweight papers at 100gsm. You could also use wrapping paper, with a rotary trimmer you could get perfect squares or 'origami tiles' out of any wrapping paper still in good condition - it always seems such a shame to throw it away. With practise this would also be a great project to keep creative kids happy - they could make some lovely Christmas cards for friends and family, although as with the video below it may be best to start big so it is less fiddly to learn the technique.

The Origami Resource centre says that apparently Tea Bag Folding originated in Holland by a lady named Tiny van der Plaas. She needed a birthday card for her sister but didn’t have any decorative paper. She fiddled with tea bag wrappers and was inspired to use them in her card. To this day, tea bag folding continues to be a popular method for making cards and decorations. The Origami resource website has some amazing tutorials for you to learn the various techniques.

Take a look at our collection of beautiful examples of Tea Bag Folding cards and projects if you need some inspiration.