Welcome to day 16 of my 25 Days of Craftmas series! Today I’m showing you how to make a stenciled Christmas dish towel. These are easy to make and are great for your own home and they make great gifts for family, friends, and neighbors. You can find dish towels just about anywhere. You can use just a plain color or a patterned design. I actually found these cute striped towels at my grocery store for $.99! They are perfect for Christmas.
Sometimes stenciling on fabric can be a bit tricky because the paint can bleed, leaving your design looking less than perfect. The lines on this dish towel are clean and crisp. I didn’t have any bleeding. Do you want to know my secret? It’s Mod Podge. Keep on reading to learn how to make these yourself.
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED
- Dish Towel
- Fabric Mod Podge
- Vinyl (Color doesn’t matter)
- Paint (I just used Acrylic paint in red, green, turquoise and gray) and Brush
- Transfer Tape
- Electronic cutter (cricut explore, silhouette or other cutter)
- Cut File (available for free in my resource library)
HERE’S WHAT YOU DO
The first thing you’ll need to do is get the free SVG file you’ll use for this project. I keep all the SVG files I use for the projects I make in my SVG Library. These SVG files work with Cricut and Silhouette machines, as well as many others. This library is open to everyone and is free! You can access the library here. Look for the file called May Your Days be Merry and Bright. It will either be listed under the Christmas category-25 Days of Craftmas 2018 – Day 16.
Start by opening the design in your software. Size it accordingly and place a rectangle around the design to create a stencil. Cut out the vinyl with your machine and remove the vinyl letters.
Do you need help creating a stencil design? Check out this step by step tutorial for Silhouette Users here and for Circut Users here.
Apply your transfer tape and trim off the excess.
Remove the vinyl backing and apply the vinyl stencil to your dish towel. Use an application tool or scraper to rub over the vinyl to help it stick to the towel.
Carefully remove the transfer tape. The vinyl doesn’t stick that great the fabric, so I use one hand to hold the vinyl in place and use my other hand to pull off the transfer tape.
Use your hands and push down over all the letters to make sure they are stuck to the towel.
Place a piece of extra vinyl or transfer tape under the towel. This will keep any Mod Podge or paint that might go through the towel from getting on your work surface. You can use cardboard, but cover it with vinyl because the Mod Podge and paint will stick to it.
Paint over the entire design with Mod Podge. Why should you use Mod Podge? The Mod Podge acts as a sealer between the vinyl and the towel. It fills in any gaps where the paint would normally bleed. 
Once that has dried, start filling in the letters with paint. Use an up and down motion to prevent bleeding.
Once the paint is dry to the touch, pull off the vinyl stencil.
Carefully remove the insides of the letters. The Mod Podge says to wait 72 hours before washing, but I didn’t want to wait that long. I washed mine after about 24 hours and it came out looking great. I didn’t see any fading or bleeding.
This would make such a great gift, but it would also look super cute hanging in your kitchen! What do you think?
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