The History of Tea Bag Folding

We owe our addiction to tea bag folding to a wonderfully inventive lady named Tiny van der Plas.  She started origami folding in 1986 in Holland.  In 1992, she remembered that she needed a birthday card after the shops had closed.  As she was sipping a cup of tea, she began experimenting with her brightly decorated tea bag envelope.  Using some basic origami folds, she soon created a lovely medallion for the front of a card.  She recognized the potential of the tea bag tiles and developed an enthusiasm for tea bag folding that continues to this day.  She gives demonstrations and workshops and has written books about this relatively new art.  She maintains a website with a few directions to folds which can be found here. Tea bag folding has also been known as miniature kaleidoscope origami.