Last updated on October 23rd, 2023
Inside: Citrus stamped painted tea towels will make the perfect gift for mom or Grandma. Find out how to make your own kitchen keepsake in this post.
If you’re looking for a cute little keepsake gift, look no further! This handmade painted tea towel craft makes the perfect gift for anyone special in your life.
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What You’ll Need
- Tea towels
- citrus fruit (such as lemons, oranges, limes, or grapefruit)
- Fork (optional)
- paint
- paintbrushes
- muffin tin
Setting Up
Gather all of your supplies and set up your painting area. If you’re unsure how to do this properly to prevent a huge mess, be sure to check out this post detailing a super easy set up and clean up routine for painting crafts and all the best supplies needed for painting.
Cut your citrus fruit in half and blot it pretty good. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to even let it sit out for a bit so that it is less juicy. If the citrus fruit is super juicy, the paint will not stick to the fruit very well. Once your citrus fruit is ready, stab each half piece with a fork for easy grabbing (optional).
Choose your paint colors. I chose summery colors. You could go with citrus colors (orange, lime green, light pink, yellow) or any color you feel like. Pour some of each paint color in a muffin tin well and get ready to paint!
Let your toddler practice holding the fork with the fruit on it and show them how to dip and stamp each piece. Practice on paper until they get the hang of it. Once they are more sure of themselves, you can begin making the tea towels.
Making The Teal Towels
I like to use hard surfaces such as cutting boards, when doing handprints, footprints, or stamps for keepsakes. For this craft, lay the tea towel out on a cutting board. Instruct your toddler where to stamp the citrus halves. This doesn’t have to be perfect! Remember, when it comes to handmade toddler crafts, it’s the little imperfections that make them more special.
Once the citrus stamped tea towel is pretty filled up, set it aside to dry and get another towel ready to go for the second part of the craft. For the second tea towel, I just did handprints and some lettering. Use the paintbrush to paint your toddler’s hands and instruct them where to stamp their hands utilizing the same cutting board method.
After they’ve done their handprints and citrus stamps, you can do the finishing touches while they just play around making citrus stamps and finger painting. Give your toddler some paper to stamp on and have fun with.
For the finishing touches, I left the citrus stamp as is – I thought it was perfect as it was without any other added details. But for the handprints, I added the words, “Mama’s Kitchen Helper” and another for Grandma with, “Grandma’s Kitchen Helper” on it. You could write anything you want!
Where To Display Tea Towels
And that’s it! They turned out so darling. I’m going to use the ‘kitchen helper’ towel as a decorative accessory for my stove and the citrus towel will go in my toddler’s play kitchen to be used during imaginary kitchen play.
Bonus Tip: If you’d like to display your tea towels on the bar part of your oven, cabinet, or fridge, but don’t want your toddler constantly pulling it down, I’ve got a solution! Just add a chip clip or clothespin to the back of the tea towel. I just clamp the top and bottom of the towel together and this prevents it from being pulled down or from falling down every time you open your oven.
Remember, these are decorative only UNLESS you use fabric paint or acrylic paint! I avoid any paint that isn’t washable for young toddlers, but that’s just me. Honestly, they are too cute to dirty up anyway!
How did your tea towels turn out? Let me know by leaving a comment. I love hearing from you.
Be sure to check out more craft ideas here!
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