People urged ‘keep used tea bags’ as they have ‘beautiful’ DIY use

People have been encouraged to keep any used teabags and turn them into ‘beautiful’ decorations instead of throwing them away. It comes as thousands have been wowed by an Instagram user’s ‘stunning’ DIY hack for transforming tea bags into floral lanterns for your home.

The video by DIY blogger Sibia Torres Padilla, who goes by the username @Sibster and has 1.1m followers, has almost 12m views, with thousands of likes and comments. In video, she takes a used teabag and empties it before rinsing the paper and laying it flat.

She then brushes one side with a glue and water mixture before adding dried and pressed flowers and leaves on top. She then layers with another teabag sheet and coats it again with the mixture.

She leaves them to dry, and once they are fully dry, she adds borders around each one. She uses plain, thin wooden sticks and glues them to each side.

She then attachs all four framed floral teabag panels together to create a 3D rectangle that stands up on its own. In the middle, she places some fairty lights, to create a lantern effect.

In the caption of the video, Sibster explained: “Last week, I shared how we figured out how to turn our used teabags into floral paper. I really wanted to make a lantern out of it (among so many more things). So yesterday I made a few more panels and put this lantern together. I used wooden dowels on the borders to create the frames, although branches, skewers, or even popsicle sticks would work too.

“Then I put all my frames together using a little hot glue. I added a battery-operated light to the bottom and put some fairy lights inside. When you are working with paper, you never want to use actual fire, so battery-operated tea lights or LED lights work best.

“I have also been wanting to play around with this concept using non-floral items. I’m excited to play around with it. Let me know what you think. If you enjoy it, send it to someone else who might enjoy it too and follow along for more low-waste/low-cost crafts. Let’s rethink the way we look at trash!”

Many people in the comment section were impressed by not only the look of the end result, but also how she turned something common and ordinary into an eco-friendly homeware decoration. One person wrote: “Wow you are so creative. These are beautiful.”

A second said: “Absolutely brilliant so creative, beautiful. Thank you for sharing.” A third put: “This is stunning. I for sure am making one.” Someone else said: “I made this in a group and it was a total success!!! Thank you.”

Another said: “Good idea for recycling tea bags and a fun crafting project! I will be picking foliage this spring to press and **try** to make some lanterns. I think I can make them and make them good, but we will see LOL.”