The countdown to Christmas is on!

Today we’re sharing a super simple and sweet DIY gift.

For these towels, I had Alex write the word LOVE on a piece of paper. We did this project a year ago to give last Christmas, and it was when he was still learning to write. You can see that I wrote “love” in the upper left corner of the paper as a guide. In my opinion his creative writing gives these towels a pile of personality and will always help us remember the phase when Alex “tied a knot in his Os to keep them closed” and made “ladder Es”.

Materials

• plain kitchen towels; I like the look and feel of flour sack towels and found these grey ones at Target
• embroidery floss
• needles
• embroidery hoop
• chalk pencil
• maker & paper for writing the original design

How-to

• Determine your design. It can be a simple word, phrase, or line drawing. You can do something more complex, but our goal is to keep this project simple!
• Using the chalk pencil, trace the design onto the towel. For these darker towels, I found it easiest to hold the design and towel up to a window for tracing.
• Embroider! You can use any stitch you prefer, and there are complete stitch dictionaries that will help you pick the right stitch for your project. For this project, I used a stem stitch, which works great for both straight and curved lines. And you can see that I took some artistic license with Alex’s original work, straightening and extending a couple of the lines in the E in spots where he ran out of room.
• Once your project is complete, iron it.

Of course, these projects make great gifts on their own. BUT since they are for the kitchen, they are also the perfect compliment to a nice mug, fancy soap, or a beautiful cheese spreader.

If you enjoy this project, make a few extras. These are great to have on hand as a hostess gift.

On top of their simplicity, these this project doesn’t cost much and can be paired with something for the kitchen for a nice DIY touch.