Immortal Wordsmith

Buying beautiful tea caddies to store your loose leaf tea in is awesome. Tea caddies keep your tea fresh and brighten your cupboards. But when you drink all that delicious tea, what do you do with the empty tea caddy?

These are my four cool ideas to help you put your old tea caddy collection to good use.

Pot Plants in Tea Caddies

This is a really cool idea. You can plant whatever you like in your old tea caddies but try to pick a plant that will be suitable for the size. Tiny cacti and succulents are great for small tea caddies, but for larger sizes you can try bigger plants. Ferns, spider plants, snake plants, and peace lilies are all great houseplants to grow in tea caddies.

You could even grow herbal tea seeds, like chamomile or spearmint, to make your own herbal tisanes.

The most important thing here is to make sure your tea caddy will drain well. You’ll want to poke holes in the bottom of the caddy so excess water can drain out. Otherwise, your soil will get water-logged, and the plant roots will start to rot. Worst case scenario – you will kill your plants.

Tea Caddy Holders (Functional and Decorative)

Tea caddies are most useful for organising things. Just like they held your loose leaf tea, now they can hold other objects.

I like to keep my tea tools in one – this caddy holds my tea infusers, matcha scoop, thermometer and teapot spout cleaner.

Another one is kept by my desk to hold pens, pencils and a pair of scissors. They always go missing though!

Finally, you can use tea caddies for decoration. This tea caddy table topper is really pretty, with dried decorative accents. If you wanted to use your tea caddy as a vase for fresh flowers, I recommend you place a plastic bag inside the tea caddy. Tea caddies aren’t designed to be watertight.

Keepsake Boxes

If you enjoy Basilur teas, you likely have these really cute book-style tea tins. I have a few of the mini ones myself and I love storing little bits and pieces in them. Photographed is the romantic mini book tin, which I keep jewellery items in. I have another that I keep buttons in, for when I need to repair clothes.

This is a great idea for hiding secret items too. The Basilur book caddies fit in perfectly on a bookshelf!

Other ideas:

• Makeup and cosmetics,
• Paper clips,
• Sewing needles, pins and embroidery thread,
• Batteries,
• Spare keys,
• Beads,
• Screws and small spare parts.

Christmas Tea Lights

So cute! I am incredibly proud of this idea.

Over the years, I’ve collected so many of these mini caddies from Whittard of Chelsea and I can’t stand the idea of throwing them away. The Silent Night tea is my favourite. So instead, I’ve taken the lids off, flipped them over and glued them on top to create tea light holders.

Now, every Christmas, I set the mood at home with shiny cute Christmas scented tealights. They remind me of the teas of Christmases past!

The great thing about the Whittard mini tea caddy lids is that they have high sides, so if your candle goes out or the flame grows too high, it won’t be a fire hazard. I also recommend that you fill the tea tin with something heavy (pebbles, for example) so it won’t be easily knocked over. Use a strong glue as well, to make sure the up-turned lid is securely attached.

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