Simply Made: DIY Flour Sack Towels

As my family has been house hunting I’ve been eyeing gorgeous white kitchens and dreaming of cooking in one soon. While I wait for my perfect kitchen I decided I could work on basic decor for a white kitchen to keep me busy and let my creative juices flow. This week I designed some cheeky flour sack towels to keep with the white look we want but still include our sense of humor for an added little smile each time we’re in the kitchen.

I love flour sack towels because not only are they white, they’re cheap and work GREAT! I can buy them in bulk and they’re blank slates for any design my heart desires. This go around I made 4 for myself and 1 for my mother-in-law, who has graciously opened her home to our rowdy family of five while we look for our home.

I use THIS TECHNIQUE to make my towels, which can be done with your printer, freezer paper, some scissors, an iron and fabric paint but I use my Silhouette Cameo to skip through the tedious cutting for the stencils. You can also use heat transfer vinyl if that’s your thing-much less work!

Here’s how I made these (If you use a Silhouette or a Cricut to cut your design, skip steps 1 & 2) :

1. Tape an 8.5″ x 11″  piece of freezer paper shiny side down to a piece of cardstock or printer paper. The paper/cardstock will carry the freezer paper through the printer (It’s too flimsy to go through on it’s own).
2. Place your taped freezer paper/printer paper combo into your printer (making sure it will print on the freezer paper side) and print out the design you want to use. Cut out the design with scissors, leaving negative space only where you’ll want the paint. Make sure to save the insides of letters like O, D, A, etc.
3. Iron your cut out design onto the towel, then add the insides of the letters you saved and iron those into place.
4. Place a piece of carboard or paper under your towel and paint over your stencil with fabric paint.
5. Wait for your paint to dry for about 10 minutes (more is fine but it works best when not fully dry) and then peel the freezer paper off of your towel to reveal your finished design!

These turned out pretty great, although there’s some leaking where I wasn’t as careful about ironing well this time around. Overall I’m pretty happy with these towels and can’t wait to put them in our future home!