DIY Thanksgiving tea towel Silhouette stencil tutorial! & discount code

DIY Thanksgiving tea towel Silhouette stencil tutorial! & discount code

• 11.12.2015

I love learning new things!! And crafty skills.

This time, I put my Silhouette Fabric Ink Starter Kit to use finally, with a new kind of project on my Silhouette Cameo machine. So far I've done a lot of my own lettering/designs with iron-on vinyl, which has worked out great (see all my Silhouette projects here), but this little machine can do SO much and I wanted to start learning a few other tricks!

I forget where this project idea came from, exactly, but I guess I'm getting excited for the cozy holidays and spending time in the kitchen with family and friends.

You could use this stencil tutorial for lots of project types - tote bag, potholder??, tee of course... even art print!

Thanksgiving/Holiday DIY Stencil Tea Towels

You will need:

• Silhouette Cameo machine (after 11/20, use code ENJOY on the Silhouette website for special deals during Black Friday week!)
• Silhouette Fabric Ink Starter Kit
• Craft paint and fabric medium (or fabric paint/ink)
• Basic cutting and measuring tools

Instructions:

(There is a very helpful video on how to use the Silhouette Fabric Ink Starter Kit materials here.)

1. Pre-wash and iron tea towels or other project base.

2. Design!! I played around in the Silhouette store (linked within the program you install on your computer when you buy a Silhouette) and found quite a few great designs for what I wanted! It was hard to choose just three (or, as it turned out, a few that I combined to three larger designs).

Here are some of my ideas and combined results. You can easily manipulate shapes and delete parts of them, shrink, group, ungroup, etc. - it works a lot like a more basic graphic design program.

3. Size. I measured the space on the tea towels where I wanted the design, and sized the images to a little smaller than that (room for white space all around).

4. Cut, peel, stick, etc. to make the stencil. Watch this YouTube video for instructions on how to use the stencil kit. (It's much easier than making your own stencil with freezer paper, for example, since the tape material keeps the design completely in place!)

5. Place the stencil. Measure the center of the design and fold the tea towel in half to find its center. Peel the backing off the stencil and place it, centered, on the tea towel.

6. Paint! If using standard craft paint and fabric medium, mix them together (usually a 1:1 ratio) in a dish. Dot the paint onto the stencil. It's pretty liquid with the fabric medium mixed in, so be careful not to splash.

I went for a bit of an ombre look on this one.

(If your design is too close to an edge, you can extend the stencil with a piece of clear or masking tape.)

I got creative mixing paint colors from the few fall tones I pulled out of my craft paint collection!

7. Let dry. Once dry, peel stencil off.

Mine turned out great!!

This one's my favorite - not just cause of all the colors and how well it turned out, but because I'm a much happier person when I remember to practice gratitude and the "be grateful" message is an important one for me. It's like a command, but it's written so pretty, it's not bossy! ;)

I highly recommend trying out the Silhouette Fabric Ink Starter Kit for a simple holiday decor project like this! Would be a great hostess gift at a holiday dinner party, yes? And of course a great function decor piece to make your home feel more festive!

The Silhouette Cameo with vinyl set is also great (see all my Silhouette projects here) but might be tough to use on thinner fabric like these tea towels.

Black Friday week discounts!

Silhouette does some awesome Black Friday sales, and has some special bundle pricing for my readers! After 11/20, use code ENJOY on the Silhouette website for special deals. Put the items in your cart, then enter the promo code and you'll see the extra discounts. (Expires December 4.) Mark your calendar!