Don’t Cost A Dime: Tea Towel Art

You may remember that I love to make pillows from cool napkins (see this post and this post). Well, I have a couple of awesome napkins and tea towels just sitting around here that I was going to use for some future sewing project and I got to thinking… they would make great artwork! So I enlisted the help of my husband (poor guy, he always seems to be dragged into helping me with all of my wacky ideas!) and here’s what I came up with:

tea towel 1

What do you think? I hung one in my bedroom and the other (the bird) in my bathroom. Now for all of you DIY-ers here are the step by step instructions…

1. Build the frame. This is where I had my hubby’s help. Each towel/napkin will vary in size so you will have to figure that part out on your own. We just used scrap materials we had in our garage. Here is a pic of the finished construction (one front and one back):
tea towel 4

2. Iron your towel/napkin. Make sure to get all the creases out!!!
tea towel 5

3. Cut off any labels from the towel so they don’t get in the way.

4. Lay the towel face down on a hard surface. Begin to wrap the towel around the frame, one side at a time, and using a staple gun, staple it in place on the backside. Make sure to stretch the fabric as you go so it’s nice and tight.
tea towel 3
tea towel 2

5. Hang it on the wall. You can add a picture hanger to the back if you want but I just hung mine from the frame on a nail.

Easy peasy right?! Now all you have to do is go find some cool dish towels. If you are wondering, I found these at Target last year and I know they don’t have these exact ones any more (I got them on clearance for $.74!). So, while you may not be able to get the exact towels I used, check out Anthropologie, they never disappoint! Here are some I found on their website:
anthro dish towels

If anyone makes some tea towel art, you must show me! I would love to see what you come up with!