DIY Tea Towel decorations and gifts

Who doesn’t love a handmade present, filled with love and hard work? Here are three gifts that can be easily prepared by using Tea Towels and will surely make the recipient face light up with joy.

Recipe Tea towel

To create your “recipe” tea towel, you will require:

• clean, ironed plain white flour sack towels
• a fabric marker
• a preferred handwritten recipe

Now, clearly you can just free-hand the recipe onto your flour sack towel, but sketching is much simpler and conserves the illustrious character of the original script.

Once you have your recipe printed out, tape it to the rear of the tea towel face down at your preferred location. If the words of the recipe are not visible through the tea towel, just stick the towel on a window and use that as your work shell. Trace the recipe onto the tea towel via your fabric marker. It aids to tape up the initial recipe card as well so you can position it while you trace. Once you have sketched over the recipe, take the towel down and go over any places that need to be straightened. Allow the ink to dry for a couple of moments, and you have a heartfelt, beautiful, gift that is sure to impress.

Tea towel pillow cases

With a 5 dollar pack of tea towels and one pack of bias tape you can sew up about 4 pillow covers in approximately less than an hour.

Instructions:

• Start with cutting two, 18″ pieces of white double fold bias tape. On one end, fold the top down about half an inch.
• Then sew all the way round.
• Replica with the other portion of bias tape.
• Next, fold the tea towel in half with the right sides together.
• Line up all the pins and stripes in place.
• Sew 3/4 of the way around with a 1/4″ seam, permitting one short end exposed. Before you switch the pillow right side out, make certain to clip the turns, as there is a lot of loose parts there from the already made towel seams.  Just be cautious not to slice into your seam. Then all the stripes will assemble when you turn it right side out. Locate the mid by folding the pillow cover in semi and inserting a pin on both the sides.
• This is the place you will need to place your ties, so they are fixed.
• Gather the incomplete end of the bias tape below and stitch on the inside of the completed pillow cover.
• Recap with the other part of bias tape on the other side.
• Slide an insert in and you are done.

You can create your own insert pretty fast

• Sew up two 13 by 20 inch pieces of sun-bleached drop cloth, or some other white cotton material, all the way over, leaving a three inch piece not stitched.
• Flip it right side out and add some stuffing.  Sew the 3″ part that you had left open.
• When setting the insert into the new pillow cover, conceal the 3″ spot that you left open, since it will look messy, by positioning that end first into the pillow cover.  The nicely stitched edge would be the one peeping out.
• Keep carrying out this procedure and you will have a collection of farmhouse pillows all over your place that only cost a few bucks each!

Fancy Tea Towel Jar Decoration

• What You require:
  White flour sack towels
  Some freezer paper
  A craft knife
  An  iron
  Some acrylic craft paint
  A foam brush
  A scrap piece of cardboard

Begin the process by planning the mark you want to use for the design in any word processor software. Type the note and alter it to a definitive font then make it 250-point size. Focus the letter on the page and then print.

Position a portion of freezer paper, shiny side down, over your print out, and draw the letter onto the rear of the freezer paper. Use a craft knife to edit the letters. If the monogram has some free inner pieces, be certain to hold onto those pieces that you will require complete the stencil. Even though you can recycle the monogram print out, you will require 1 freezer paper stencil for each of the towel you want to make.

Once the freezer paper stencil is cut, attach it to the towel. Arrange the stencil, shiny side down, at the mid of the edge and iron it into position. The temperature of the iron will cause the plastic coating to stick, fastening the edges to make a lovely, crisp stencil line.

Before painting, position a scrap portion of cardboard at the rear of the fabric to gather any paint that might infuse through it. Use a foam brush to dab on acrylic craft paint, masking the letter totally. Let the paint dry. (A blow dryer really speeds up the process if you are in a rush!) Cautiously peel off the freezer paper.

To package it fold two branded towels into thirds then roll up and slide them into a canning jar. Tie on some jingle bells with ribbon or yarn for a festive finishing touch.