It's Always Autumn

creative tutorials for everyday life

  • Holidays
  • Holidays
    • back to school
    • birthdays
    • Christmas
    • Easter
    • Halloween
    • July 4th
    • Mother’s Day/Father’s Day
    • teacher appreciation
    • Thanksgiving
    • Valentine’s
  • Crafts
  • Crafts
    • crafts + DIY
    • handmade gifts
    • photo crafts
    • kid crafts + activities
  • Recipes
  • Recipes
    • bread
    • dessert
    • main dish
    • side dish
  • Sewing
  • Sewing
    • free sewing patterns
    • sewing for women
    • sewing for kids
    • how to sew
    • gifts
  • Photography
  • Photography
    • beginning photography tips
    • posing tips
    • photo editing tips
  • Tips
  • Tips
    • parenting tips
    • travel tips
    • books I love
  • FAQ

Christmas crafts crafts + DIY handmade gifts holidays
October 26, 2020

Everything you need to know to put Grandma’s handwritten recipe on a tea towel

In today’s post: Learn how to transfer’s Grandma’s favorite handwritten recipe from an old recipe card to a kitchen towel for an beautiful heirloom gift!

I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my Grandma Alice’s famous chocolate pie. My parents knew each other as children, but lost touch when they both went away to college. One day my Grandma heard that my dad (Ray) was back in town, and she got to work making a pie, which she asked her daughter (my mom) to deliver. My dad was the one who answered the door, and the rest is history!

My grandma passed away about 10 years ago and one of the things I inherited was her recipe box. A few years ago I saw a kitchen towel with a recipe transferred onto it and thought that would be a fun gift for my mom and sisters. So I started searching online and found a number of different techniques for making a handwritten recipe kitchen towel.

Kitchen tea towel with Grandma\'s recipe in her handwriting printed on it

Today’s post reviews everything you need to know to transfer a handwritten recipe to a towel so you can preserve a favorite recipe on a gorgeous handmade gift.

How to transfer a handwritten recipe onto a kitchen tea towel

Out of all the gifts we give and receive for Christmas, birthdays, or other holidays, only a few of them are truly meaningful. This handmade gift idea is a way to preserve a bit of your family history in a way that can be shared and displayed. If you google “how to make a recipe towel” you’ll find lots of different tutorials using a number of different methods. I’ve read through them all so you don’t have to!

There are three main techniques for transferring a recipe to a kitchen towel (aka tea towel). I’ll give you a quick overview of each one and point you to thorough instructions, as well as detail the pros and cons of each method so you can decide which one is best for you.

Kitchen towel with handwritten recipe on it hanging on an oven door

Method #1 – Print your own fabric on demand using Spoonflower

For this method, you will scan your recipe card and use a photo processing program to remove the background, leaving just the written recipe. You format your recipe to the size of a fat quarter and then upload the image to Spoonflower, a print on demand fabric company. Order the fabric, and a week or two later you have a professional looking fabric piece which you can hem for use as a kitchen towel.

For full instructions, read the tutorial on the Spoonflower blog here. Here’s what their finished towel looks like:

Kitchen towel with handwritten recipe, with yellow border

Here’s another example from The Modern Commonplace Book. She used Picasa to edit her scans of the recipe, then ordered the fabric from Spoonflower. Click through for info on how to do that.

Person holding a kitchen towel with old handwritten recipe card transferred onto it

I also used this method, and this is what my towel looks like:

How to transfer grandma's handwritten recipe onto a tea towel. Heirloom recipe towel. Great DIY gift idea.

Pros of the custom printed fabric method:

This is the most professional looking option, and it preserves the exact character of the handwriting. Because the fabric is professionally printed it can be washed over and over without much fading, and it’s easy to order as many copies as you need if you want to make towels for multiple family members. 

Cons of the custom printed fabric method:

This method is more expensive than the other ones I’ll share today. (I was able to order printed fabric for 8 towels for $55 including shipping, which I thought was reasonable, but if you are only making one towel the fabric + shipping will make it more expensive.) You also must be able to scan in the recipe and clean it up in a photo processing program if needed, and this can be difficult if the writing is faded or the recipe card is dirty or smudged. Finally, it also requires basic sewing skill to finish off the hem.

Bottom line: If you have a nice clean recipe card (or Grandma is still alive and you can have her copy a recipe onto a clean piece of paper) AND you are comfortable with a bit of sewing and computer work, this will give you the most professional looking and longest lasting result. Also, if you want to make multiples, this option is fairly quick.

Method #2 – Hand trace the recipe onto a purchased towel

For this method, you will scan in your recipe and print it out larger OR get it blown up at a copy shop. Then you will trace it onto a purchased tea towel using a Sharpie.

This post from One Good Thing by Jillee gives lots of details for how to do this, so head over there if you like this method. Here’s what her towel looks like:

Kitchen towel with cinnamon roll recipe on it hanging on an oven door

This is another example from Sometimes Homemade. Her post includes information on how to soak the towel in a homemade solution that prevents fading.

Kitchen towel with handwritten recipe

Pros of the hand tracing method:

This method is simple and straightforward and doesn’t require any computer work. The finished towel can be washed, although the text will fade over multiple washes. Since you start with a premade towel there’s no sewing involved. It’s also very inexpensive (you can find multipacks of simple tea towels for just a few dollars at craft stores or Walmart), and if you have a steady hand can turn out looking very nice.

Cons of the hand tracing method:

This method takes patience! Depending on how steady of a hand you have, this may take a while, AND if you make a big mistake you’ll have to start over. That makes this hard to do if you want to make more than one. Additionally, the sharpie will fade some in the wash.

Bottom line: If the recipe card is very smudged and dirty making it hard to get a good digital copy, tracing might be the best way to go. If you’re willing to put in the time to get a good copy, this method is inexpensive and straightfoward and ends up looking great.

Method #3 – Transfer the recipe with iron on paper

This method involves scanning in your recipe and printing it on iron on paper, which you then iron onto a purchased towel.

Here is one example with instructions from Coll Neu Photography:

Kitchen towel with handwritten recipe transferred onto it

And here’s another example using this method from Mad In Crafts:

Kitchen towel with handwritten recipe on it, lying on a stack of kitchen bowls and wood spoons

Pros of the iron on method:

This method is super fast and super easy! There’s no painstaking tracing, no messing around with computer programs, and no sewing. And you get an exact replica of the card on your towel. It’s easy to make multiple towels, and transfer paper is usually easy to find and not too expensive.

Cons of the iron on method:

The iron-on paper will change the texture of the towel so it won’t look quite as professional as either of the above methods. Remember your image can only be as large as you can print and you’ll need to reverse the image before printing it out. Finally, I would not recommend washing the towels as most iron-on images crack after a few washes.

Bottom line: This method of transferring a handwritten recipe to a towel is fast and easy as long as the item will be for display ONLY.

Ok, I hope this is useful for those of you who are interested in tackling this project! It’s really a beautiful, meaningful handmade gift idea.

Here are a few more photos of the towels I made:

Grandma\'s handwritten recipe transferred onto a tea towel, sitting with a cup of cocoa  Recipe kitchen towel hanging on an oven door

NOTE: My recipe card was too faded and smudged to be able to extract the handwriting in Photoshop. I ended up tracing the recipe onto another piece of paper, then scanning that in and adding lines. So I combined methods #1 and #2.

Stack of kitchen towels which have all had a handwritten recipe printed on them

Kitchen towel with handwritten chocolate pie recipe printed on it

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Print

Home » holidays » Everything you need to know to put Grandma’s handwritten recipe on a tea towel


10 Comments

free email series

NO FAIL CRAFTS + RECIPES

Get my favorite EASY craft and recipe ideas straight to your inbox!

« How to make personalized candles [cheap + easy handmade gift!]
How to Make a Handprint Christmas Tree Skirt »

Comments

  1. Nancy Robinson says

    November 9, 2017 at 7:23 am

    Beautiful heirloom idea!! And thank you for the great shot of the entire recipe….you KNEW we’d want it!

    Reply
  2. Kathy says

    November 9, 2017 at 9:18 am

    Great project Autumn, if I had a copy of my mother’s recipe in her handwriting I would treasure it forever.

    Reply
  3. Ray Pettit says

    November 10, 2017 at 9:40 am

    Full Disclosure … this recipe makes the absolutely BEST chocolate pie in the world!

    Ray

    Reply
  4. Debbie says

    November 3, 2020 at 12:44 pm

    This is an absolutely fantastic idea! My husband has a lot of his mom’s handwritten recipes and this would make a fantastic gift (probably for the both of them!). I will most definitely be checking into this! I think I prefer option 1, but I’m grateful for your tip about how you actually did it (tracing it first). That may work better so I can format it in a better orientation to fit the towel. I just love this. Thanks for sharing it.

    Reply
  5. Stacey Grimes says

    December 28, 2020 at 6:43 pm

    I do this on a reverse canvas, but I had trouble with some of the lettering. Like the cut outs in some were missing. I know that’s how it was written, but do you have a solution for this?

    Reply
  6. Moksha Essentials says

    February 1, 2021 at 7:33 am

    Love this stuff ! As I was working on getting more things about this, the article has helped me to solve various clarifications. Thanks for the great content.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Linky Thursday | StacySews says:
    November 9, 2017 at 8:55 am

    […] the holidays more personal by sewing one of these handmade recipe tea towels for your […]

    Reply
  2. Handwritten Recipe Gift - Meaningful and Unique Gift Ideas! - Laguna Lane says:
    April 25, 2018 at 12:57 pm

    […] 2 – Take a more DIY approach to the kitchen towels.  This post does a great job of explaining all of the DIY options with photo examples, including hand-tracing […]

    Reply
  3. Meaningful DIY Gift Ideas For The Holidays - Gift Delivery says:
    December 15, 2020 at 7:50 am

    […] Recipe kitchen towels […]

    Reply
  4. Fabric Printed With Recipes - Recipe Fabric | Etsy says:
    January 31, 2021 at 10:17 pm

    […] 9. Everything you need to know to put Grandma’s handwritten … […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Hey, glad you’re here!

I'm Autumn, a mom of five who loves ice cream, Masterpiece Theatre, and clothes that hide the fact that I eat so much ice cream. When I was 18 I got a job at a craft store and told everyone (regularly) how much I hated crafts. Well, things change! Read More…

Find me here

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

free email series

NO FAIL CRAFTS + RECIPES

Get my favorite craft + recipe ideas straight to your inbox!

Popular Posts

101 fun activities that kids can do at home list on a colorful striped background

101 Fun + Easy Activities kids can do AT HOME

50 easy crafts and activities kids can do indoors! Perfect for cold or rainy days.

50 best indoor activities for kids: easy crafts + games

Gorgeous art projects for kids! Easy art that turns out amazing.

20 easy art projects for kids that turn out AMAZING!

Collage of different paper flowers tutorials

How to make GORGEOUS paper flowers

Various flavors of baked mini donuts made from cake mixes

How to make mini donuts! {baked cake mix donuts recipe}

Blog policy

All posts and pictures are copyrighted by Autumn Baldwin and blog content may not be reposted elsewhere. However, linking back to my content is just fine. You may use one photo as long as you link directly back to the specific post. Thank you!

Please view our Privacy Policy here.

Also, please note that this blog is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Copyright © 2021 · Divine theme by Restored 316192.168.1.1 router login

Copyright © 2021 · Divine Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

free email series

NO-FAIL CRAFTS + RECIPES

Get my favorite EASY craft + recipe ideas straight to your inbox!

x