‘Tis the season to start thinking about what you want to do for gifts for the holidays. These tea towels are fantastic as they are relatively simple to do, easy on the pocketbook AND can be used for so many things. I made them in bulk and used them for napkins, favors, hostess gifts, gifts for co-workers and neighbors, too!
Bonus: You can change up the wording and/or paint color and make them for any holiday or occasion. Talk about a versatile tea towel. So, let’s get to it 🙂
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Here’s my my Step-by- Step Guide on how to make them:
Tea Towel Materials Needed:
- Tea Towels
- Fabric Paint (I used Ruby Red)
- Rubber Stamps
- Foam Brushes
- Painters Tape (I always have this on hand for a million uses!)
- Newspaper (for the mess)
- Cardboard
- Paper Towels
- Scratch Paper (for test run)
I knew I would be making these for lots of gift giving, so I bought a lot and made them in bulk, essentially an “assembly line” or in the spirit of the holidays…Santa’s Workshop ;). I put on a little Hallmark Christmas movie to get in the spirit, and away I went.
By the way…for any of you Hallmark Christmas Movie fans, I have a FABULOUSLY FUN Party for you to throw. This is my 9th year hosting one…think PJ’s, yummy food & Hallmark Movie Bingo! To find out more about it, click HERE!
Here was my process:
- Wash, dry and lightly iron the tea towels. This is important so they are preshrunk and the light iron will make them look much more finished.
- Cut cardboard into small squares. You just need it large enough to go under the first layer of your tea towel so the paint doesn’t soak through.
- Once you decide where you would like your word (lettering) to be located, put a piece of painters tape down. This will help guide your lettering so it stays even. (I actually liked that it wasn’t “perfect”. It gave them each character and they certainly knew it was handmade.)
4. Using your foam brush, apply paint to individual letters. A little dab will do ya, otherwise it will be difficult to make out the letter. (I highly recommend doing some practice stamping on some paper to get the feel of it prior to stamping your tea towel.) You may need to wipe a little paint off the stamp so having a paper towel handy will be helpful.
5. Stamp tea towel with desired letters or design.
6. Once you have completed stamping, remove the blue tape but KEEP THE CARDBOARD until the paint is completely dry to avoid paint soaking into the other layers of the tea towel.
7. Once paint is completely dry, remove cardboard from tea towel.
8. Per fabric paint instructions, I then put a layer of fabric (I just used another tea towel) and ironed my design. This made my tea towels washing machine friendly. and VOILA!
As I used many of the tea towels as napkins, I set those aside. I made sure I had a variety of the holiday words to use for each place setting. To use the tea towels for favors, hostess gifts and co-workers I wrapped them up individually.
Materials to Wrap as Gifts:
- Cellophane Bags
- 2” Red Satin Ribbon
- Red & White Bakers
- White Cardstock (for tags, but always great to have on hand)
- Hole Punch (for tags; but I use mine all the time)
- Paper Cutter or Scissors
*For a free download of my gift tags’ design, subscribe to funwithfunsize.com below!
These were so well-received as gifts and looked amazing on the dining room table, too!
To see how to make this decorative Christmas table design, click here!
Would love to hear if you take on this project, especially how you change it up for your own special design.
For MORE GREAT GIFT IDEAS this Christmas, check out my Christmas Gift Ideas post HERE!
Until next time, wishing you a lovely holiday season full of as much fa-la-la as possible! Blessings to you and yours~
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Such a cool idea that could be used with anything in mind. I’ve definitely gotta give this a try.
Absolutely! Valentine’s Day will be here before you know it and these little gifts would be perfect. Let me know if you give it a “go”! 🙂