tea time.

handmade tea bags for Thea's play kitchen

In this house, we drink a lot of tea. During the colder months, I usually sip hot tea with a touch of honey all day long. Yum.

Thea has fallen in love with tea too - not drinking it - but the ritual of making it. Each morning, she helps John prepare tea for the two of us. She helps him open the tea and put the bag into the pot or tea cup. (Now that I am drinking mostly loose tea, I'll have to come up with another way for her to help).

She knows whose tea is whose by the color of the tag - red tea (English Breakfast) for dad and yellow or green tea for mama.

For her birthday, I had been looking for a tea set to add to her play kitchen. I finally decided on this one, made from recycled plastic milk jugs. The set is very sweet, but it just didn't seem complete without tea to go along with it.

So, I came up with some simple little tea bags that Thea can use to make her own tea.

I had originally planned to make them out of felt, but then had the idea to use some natural muslin instead, making the tea bags just a tad more realistic. I put a little bit of quinoa inside to give them a little weight, and added some cotton strings and felt tags in red, yellow, and green. Simple and sweet.

 

If it wasn't for my sewing machine jamming up, this project would have taken only about 20 minutes or so. Super easy.

I'm curious - if your child has a play kitchen, what types of food or accessories does he or she love the most?

Comments

[Cameron]

These are sooooooo cute! I should make some for my nieces but since my basement flooded my machine and stash are inaccessible.... so let me know if you post any on Etsy! :)

[Erika]

Hi Nikole!

i saw this post through facebook, and wanted to comment about kitchen ideas! :)

my daughter is 2.5 and has always loved her play kitchen. i've found that the most popular accessories are the real ones - used & cleaned baby food jars (you can fill them with beans and make cute labels) and old spice jars (especially the more expensive/vintage-y looking ones). she also loves the cupcake kit and the birthday cake kit from melissa & doug. I also got a couple baking items from IKEA - rolling pin, etc.

as for food, the plastic stuff never interested her (it does in other departments, just not in this one). so I bit the bullet and invested in a couple nice, wooden food pieces by Haba. I especially love the grapes - they're heavy, individually strung and they feel real. I got those at oompa toys using coupons.

finally - the biggest hit was our most recent purchase, which was a cash register. it makes noises, it scans purchases, and its plastic, but we play 'grocery store' every night after dinner. she loves it!! there's a couple different brands out there. I happened to get the one by Battat (it usually comes in a market stand...but i got in on craig's list, just the cash register part) but I have seen them at target, etc.

I want to get/make a lemonade stand for her this summer. so fun! Good luck and hugs to your family! :)

[seminar topics]

Thank you,
this post is very interesting..
i got a lot of inspiration from this to do something (for my academic project abstraction)

[Dale]

Ava loves the fruits/veggies that cut (from Plan Toys, I think?) and spent 30 minutes practicing the day she figured out how to do it. She loves to bring me soup - her favorite to prepare is egg soup (the little wooden egg in a bowl) but she and I both like playing with the pasta (bowtie and linguini inspired by your previous entries). I decided to spend a little more and get a few less items by going the wooden toy route and am so glad I did. But I still must have the grapes :) Need to remember to get those sometime!!

[suzanne]

i love this, nikole. i must make some for jo's set. we use our little set like this one for tea regularly...only he's all about hot, warm tea with cream (water, sometimes milk) these days. i love the tea bags! seriously. might make some today!

[Kim]

My little girl is getting this tea set for Christmas and I love your tea bags!! Do you sell them?

Thanks!

[Gary Neal]

Oh my gosh that is so adorable. I love the little tea bag idea. My daughter, Millicent, would absolutely love those. Did you make them, or can you find them somewhere. We were just looking at kids kitchen sets the other day, and this would be a great addition.

[Karla]

Love the teabags! My kids love their shopping cart, ice cream set and basket of produce.