Make Them: Heirloom Tea Towels with Recipes

When we use the word heirloom it truly means the world. Heirloom recipes that have been in our families for years, no, decades upon decades, bring back memories of happy holidays, birthdays, and just every day dinners, spent enjoying and laughing with our loved ones. Our recipe box contains the best of both of our families: Parisian Wafers from Aleah’s grandma {we’re sharing this top secret recipe this week!}, Sunday dinner ideas from Nick’s grandma, plum tortes from Aleah’s dad, gourmet Mac and Cheese from Aleah’s mom….each strikes a chord of happiness.

Our family means oh-so much to us, especially during this time of year, and the thought of not celebrating with Aleah’s departed grandpa or Nick’s departed grandparents does weigh heavy. But starting new traditions and honoring traditions past helps us honor them and celebrate the season with our incredible families. While we’ve been wanting to create this projects with old family recipes on tea towels and aprons, for some time, we spotted a similar project on  Spoonflower Blog and it inspired us to just make a bunch. Here’s our how-to:

old {or new!} recipe | printer transfer paper for t-shirts or cotton {and ink} | an iron | pre-washed tea towels

Step 1. find the perfect recipe and scan it to your computer {we chose to print two to an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of transfer paper}

Step 2. go into Picasa or Photo Shop and create a new full page document. Insert your photos to scale and clean them up a bit {darkening the print really helps}. Then reverse the images so they will transfer properly.

Step 3. print out your images on normal paper before you waste transfer paper. Once it’s all good print out on your transfer paper.

Step 4. trim the images out as you like and follow the direction on the paper. Here’s what we did:

Step 5. lay out a pre-washed tea towel and iron flat. Place your transfer paper in the center and iron on carefully.

Step 6. let the transfer image cool on the tea towel for a few minutes and carefully remove. 

Yahoo! Package a stack of two or four and cinch with a pretty holiday ribbon.

Photos and project: Valley & Co.

Okay, do you think this is as special of a project as we do? We can see these as sweet gifts for Mother’s Day, even Valentine’s Day or any celebration. Who would you make a set of these for?