This time when I went looking for kitchen towels, I decided to get myself something ‘different’. That’s easier said than done. Everywhere I looked, including online, I found kitchen towels in checks or stripes. You can picture them, can’t you? White cotton cloth with checks in red / blue / green / black? I’m sure all of us have pretty much the same set at home. But this time I really wanted different. That’s how these DIY kitchen towels came about. I didn’t find anything different, so I made it!

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

How To Make Pretty DIY Kitchen Towels With Stencils

The only towels I could find were checks or stripes. My existing towels are white, with coloured checks on them. So this time I picked coloured towels with white stripes on them. Then it was just these easy steps to personalise them and make them my own.

(1) Wash and Iron Them:

You need to wash the towels first to remove all the starch and have clean fabric so that the paint takes to it well. Once dry, I ironed them out to remove all the creases and have a flat surface to paint on.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

(2) Make a Stencil:

I decided to use a stencil to paint the towels so that I could easily make the same design on all the towels. So the first step was to make the stencil. I folded a piece of paper in half and started drawing curved lines from the fold outwards. I thought the curved lines would look nice against the straight lines of the stripes. Also, I kept the thickness of the curved lines similar to the thickness of the straight lines already on the kitchen towels.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

If you’re not sure about drawing your own stencil, you can search for ready stencils online and simply print out one you like. If you like the one I’ve done above, send us your email id in the slot at the beginning or the end of this post, and we will email this design to you.

Then cut carefully along the lines to cut out your stencil. It helps to use a smaller scissor if the lines are fine.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

I opened out my stencil and was quite happy with it.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

(3) Paint Your Design Using The Stencil:

I used Fevicryl Acrylic Colours to paint these towels. Decide where you want to paint your design and place the stencil carefully. I placed the bottom end of the paper along the bottom end of the napkin to ensure the design was straight. I placed the fold of the paper along the centre fold line of the napkin to ensure the design was in the centre.

Paint the design by dabbing the brush over the stencil. Don’t use brush strokes. The paper moves easily with the strokes of the brush and the paint gets under the edges. Dabbing the brush keeps the paper in place and ensures the paint stays only within the cutout area.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

Once you are done, lift the paper carefully making sure the paint does not smudge.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

(4) A Border To Finish It Off:

The kitchen towel looked simple and beautiful.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

But I thought the towel looked a little incomplete as is. I thought a border at the bottom edge would ground the design properly. So I added one thick horizontal line at the bottom.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

And then a thinner line above that to complete it.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

Use Your DIY Kitchen Towels In So Many Ways:

The stencilied DIY kitchen towels look pretty cool I think… and definitely ‘different’!

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

You can also use this same technique to personalise napkins for dinner…

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

… or tea.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

Or use them as hand towels in your washroom.

How To Make Pretty Diy Kitchen Towels With Stencils

Stenciling is actually a super easy way to personalise all your linen… what are you going to begin with?

Until next time,

Rittika @ Ariyona Interior

NOTE: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links

 

How To Make Pretty DIY Kitchen Towels With Stencils
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8 thoughts on “How To Make Pretty DIY Kitchen Towels With Stencils

  • January 23, 2020 at 9:08 pm
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    What paint did you use? Is it wash proof?

    Reply
    • January 24, 2020 at 10:33 am
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      Hi Kirthi. I used Fevicryl acrylic colours. Thanks for pointing out that I haven’t mentioned it. I just added it to my write up!

      Reply
  • August 27, 2019 at 9:44 am
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    Very nicely done! I think I will try out this, a quick way to upcycle napkins at home! A small idea, if you will: 2 pencils can be held together to get the design with the same width throughout for those of us not as good at freehand like you 🙂

    Reply
    • August 27, 2019 at 9:49 am
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      That’s a great idea Payal.. never thought of it!

      Reply
  • September 5, 2017 at 8:52 pm
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    Lovely Rittika.Very neat.

    Reply
    • September 5, 2017 at 9:47 pm
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      Thanks Rashi! 🙂

      Reply
    • September 5, 2017 at 10:12 am
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      Thanks Brindha! 🙂

      Reply

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