DIY Hand Stamped Tea Towel Tutorial – Using Potatoes

DIY potato stamped tea towels, Swiss cross and watermelon patterns. A super simple tutorial that has a video! Yay.

I love fancy tea-towels, (remember I wrote a post about them) but I have never actually tried to make them myself before. Even though I bought some plain towels for exactly this reason – they have seriously been on my desk for about forever. 

So finally on Sunday, happy to not be hungover (poor Pac Man couldn't say the same) I broke out the paint, gave it a burl and created this tutorial and video for you guys. 

I just figure that hand stamped tea towels would make a really gorgeous gift, or a funky alternative to wrapping paper. And what better patterns to use than watermelons and Swiss crosses? Unfortunately the ever amazing Chantelle from Fat Mum Slim had already created the same tutorial, like REALLY similar and I only discovered this this morning. Because my tutorial is almost identical to hers I almost decided against sharing it but we're all friends, and these things happen. Plus, I made a video, and yeah, I really wanted to share it – so feel free to ignore the watermelon stamps and just focus on the crosses. 

Materials

Normal acrylic paint
Fabric Medium – but it still works without it
A plain tea towel
A potato
An iron
A paint brush

Directions

Cut your potato into the shape you want. I made a watermelon and a cross. Mix your paint with some fabric medium and using a paint brush, paint it onto the potato before pressing it down firmly on the towel. Rinse and repeat. This would be a good time to watch the video. 

After you are finished and the paint has dried, find an old tea towel and lay it on top. Then you need to iron it to really set the paint on there. These will wash pretty well, of course they will start to fade at some point but no quicker than your average bear. 

Of course you could also use this technique for any type of fabric, I used it to make a napkin too – you may have seen it in the video.

I hope you give it a go, make sure to let me know if you do. 

xox Babs

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