If there's one thing that makes me feel like I'm right back in my grandmother's kitchen, it's looking at her handwritten recipes. Almost written in calligraphy, my grandmother took pride in writing out her special recipes to share with family and friends. And when she passed away this past year, it was the biggest gift she left to me. An entire binder of handwritten recipes complete with her signature doodle on each of her "b's".
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I look at her tattered and worn recipes from time to time, careful not to bend them or add any more mysterious stains on the paper. But like treasured relics, I didn't want to handle them too much, thus I set the recipes away in a small box to preserve them.
I kept them in a box until I stumbled upon this tea towel DIY from the Hallmark Channel. Orly Shani shares with us a super easy tutorial on not only saving your recipe cards, but showing them off in the cleanest way possible.
First things first, gather all of your favorite family heirloom recipes up. Don't worry if one is stained with who knows what, the stains add character, and character we like!
You'll also need transfer paper, linen towels, an iron and liquid dye. You can buy all these things at your local craft store or online.
To begin, scan all of your recipes into your computer. Once scanned, enlarge the photo to fit the transfer paper and mirror the image. You can do this in any photo processing application or even Microsoft Word. Once mirrored and enlarged, add the transfer paper to your printer via the instructions on the transfer paper box. Click print, and you're done!
Once printed, lay the recipe on the towel (ink side down) and iron the paper. Depending on how hot the iron is, this could take anywhere from 2-3 minutes. Once warm, peel off the paper slowly from a corner. You want all the ink to come off the transfer paper.
From there you can use the towels as is or make it a little bit more colorful with the addition of a dip-dye edge. Dilute a little bit of fabric dye with water and brush along the edge of the towel. The dye will slowly travel up the towel making a fun and subtle effect.
The best way to care for these decorative towels is to stick to hand washing or even a quick spin on the delicate cycle.
