Stamped Tea Towels

I posted last week that our family has been making a conscious effort to reduce our waste by using cloth napkins instead of paper napkins and tea towels instead of paper towels. I bought plain white cotton tea towels for everyday use. And I love them!  I am a serious lover of all tea towels. You can find some rad ones on the site To Dry For. Cutest play on words ever. They know their business and have really great tea towels. My personal favorite is this one.....well right now anyway! 

For fun I decided to make some stamped and handpainted flour sack towels. At a buck a piece I couldn't go wrong. 

My supplies! 

Not pictured is the thick black foam I made the mountain stamp out of. I also used a paintbrush to make the dot and star pattern. I used plain acrylic paints, not fabric paints. They will probably fade but I don't mind that. I only stamped about a third of each towel mostly just because I loved the look of it. I researched whether acrylic paint is food safe. I found out that it is non-toxic, BUT and a big but at that, I will not be using them for real use with food. So I will lay them over bread dough when it is rising but I will not be using them for rinsing out fruit. You know what I mean? 

Black polka dots was the first pattern I tried out. I used a pencil eraser. Perfect little circle! I eyeballed the placement of the dots. You can measure it out but I like to live wildly! I re-dipped the pencil eraser for every one of the dots. I wanted them to be really saturated.

This pink star pattern was by far my least favorite. But it was a great learning experience. The stars are hand painted and I wish I had used a stamp. It was hard to get an even distribution of the paints with the paint brushes.  

Mountains! I do live in Utah after all. This one and the polka dot one are tied for my favorite. I used thick black craft foam for the stamp. I just eyeballed the mountain shape when I cut it out. I brushed the paint directly onto the foam. It makes for a more even stamp. Then I just stamped away. Awesome!  

They are imperfect and I really love that. They make me smile every time I look at them. I can't wait to start using them. 

cloth napkin tutorial round up

We use a lot of napkins and paper towels around our house. They are convenient and easy to use and killing our planet..... dun dun dun! But seriously they are bad for the environment. I feel guilty every time I throw one away. So I have been gathering cloth napkins that I find for a good price to replace our paper napkins. We have also started trying to get into the habit of using plain white tea towels instead of paper towels. I have been buying them like a sucker! Why not make a bunch? I have a ton of scrap fabric that I need to bust through. So this weekend I want to sew a bunch up. Using one of these tutorials. To be totally honest I will probably try one of each and whichever one is that absolute easiest that is the one I will use. Keep in mind that these are just a drop in the bucket of the amount of tutorials that there are for cloth napkins on the webs.

This is a great tutorial from Gingercake. 

I love the simple explanation of making mitered corners in this tutorial by Nicole's Classes. It made it click all of the sudden for me!

This one from A Beautiful Mess isn't totally a tutorial but there is a quick explanation of how to make them. I love the mismatched napkins and the cute basket to hold them!

And if you don't feel like making any:

I had to add skull ones because I love them!!

These unbleached cotton ones are beautiful. 

Last but not least simple white ones!

Would you or do you use cloth napkins? Have you made them or bought them? I am so excited to make some and start using them. Now how to store them is my next quest.