Tea Time

We had a fun and somewhat busy summer. Elle has been in various camps and we've done several "family fun" activities on the weekends.  However, I think this summer will go down in history... well at least in my mind... as the summer of the gym and the tea.  Two major new developements have occured over the course of the last couple months 1) I started going to the gym every week day and methodically tracking the number of calories I consume and 2) my nanny introduced me to her addiction... tea.

#1 is not much fun at all, in fact, I wouldn't have even mentioned it if it weren't related to #2.  I have a pretty serious sweet tooth and it doesn't play nice with counting calories!  Enter, the nanny, her love for tea, and a really interesting site to buy tea from, adagio.  On adagio, users can buy tea but they can also make their own custom blends (some of them get pretty creative and make blends inspired by movie characters... like the Harry Potter ones you see above), design their own artwork for their blends label, and make their creation available to be purchased by other users.  With teas like chocolate mint cream, I feel like I'm cheating the system somehow by getting my sweets fix in tea every afternoon for virtually no calories.

I didn't post about this just to tell you how much I love the site and my new found sweet fix though... I wanted to share this fun project for "stained glass" jars that my nanny did with my girls. 

You'll need:

mason jars - one for each type of tea you have

Tissue paper in various colors

white glue

foam brush

First, they came up with a color scheme for each flavor of tea (like peach and white for a peaches and cream tea) then they tore bits of tissue paper in those colors, dipped them in water, applied them to the outside of the mason jar, and smoothed them down.  Repeat, overlapping the tissue paper just a little until the entire surface of the jar is covered.  Then paint white glue over the whole thing and let dry.  Lastly, once the tea you tracked online through the entire shipping process and waited for with bated breathe (that's what happens when these things get to addiction level) arrives, pour it into the jar, peel the artisan's label off the bag of tea, and adhere it to the outside of the jar.  Store your jars in a cool dry place.