MyWeku

Original T-Bag Designs, which is led by its founder Jill Heyes, has been in operation since 2000.

The T-Bag Designs group gathers together to assemble the finished products: greeting cards, notepads, journals, ornaments, candles, coasters, trinket boxes, and tea light holders. They’ll make special designs by request, but ordinarily they just paint “what is in our heads”.

One of the artisans, Nomsa, recently earned enough money from painting tea bags to move from an inadequate shack to a solid new house. Nomsa said, “The most wonderful thing in the world is hearing the rain on the roof and knowing that my children are warm and dry.”

or their families while they work. Sometimes the little ones help by emptying out tea leaves.

The artists apply their own ethnic designs onto the dried tea bags, which are then incorporated into a range of greeting cards, notebooks, trinket boxes, candle holders, trays, mirrors and many other products.

Decorated tea bags have also been used for a myriad of corporate requirements, invitations, gifts, menus and general stationary.