Tea bag folding is a sort of origami which uses small squares of paper with the same pattern, folded in the same way and then arranged so as to form a symmetrical rosette or medallion which is then used as an embellishment specially on greeting cards.
This paper craft was created in Holland by Tiny van der Plaas. Apparently she needed to make a card for a friend and absently began folding tea bag envelopes thus creating a unique embellishment.
Nowadays, you can find plenty of tea bag tiles on the Internet for free download.
I must admit this is not my favourite technique simply because I cannot get neat folds as you can see from some previous attempts of mine when I first began making cards:
For really gorgeous cards made using tea bag folding you should visit KoolCrafts' Flickr page. Her folding is so neat and her cards beautiful as well as all her other origami projects. If you want to try or further develop this technique and need inspiration this is the place to go.
Here are a few links you may find useful:
Free tea bag tiles
http://www.teabagfolding.circleofcrafters.com/freeprintabletiles.html
http://madeinniagarafallsca.com/
Tea bag folding projects
http://madeinniagarafallsca.com/
http://www.dotcomwomen.com/crafts/teabag-folding-butterfly.shtml
http://www.cardinspirations.co.uk/demo/demo16.htm
Looks really nice, but is it time consuming? I will have a look at KoolCrafts. The pictures of the cards shown are really good and look 3D, but are only 2D. I wonder if I could make 2D cards using internet tiles? Perhaps that is that what you mean when you mention internet tiles? I am new to this area and have also done another post saying how your cards are. I saw 'tea bag folding' and wondered what it was. You have a really interesting site. A link to my rather ordinary card site (under construction) is Cards hand written and posted