Homemade Christmas Present Idea

I have been neglecting this blog since I got pregnant, but I thought I would post something I made recently, in case anyone needed a quick, inexpensive Christmas present idea.  I made these as a housewarming present for my sister, who is a rhino keeper at the North Carolina Zoo.  You can choose whatever you'd like for your theme.

I was trying to come up with a practical housewarming gift that she could use, and I thought of kitchen towels.  But I decided to personalize them by using fabric markers.

The whole process was pretty simple.  I went online and looked for free clip art of rhinos (I went for free clip art because I wouln't be violating any copyright laws, and I thought I could find simple line drawings that would be easy to transfer to fabric).  I found 4 .jpg images of 4 different species of rhino:

white rhino

black rhino

Javan rhino

Indian rhino

The pictures had a lot of detail, but I thought I could get the outlines traced simply.  Then I picked up flour sack kitchen towels (a pack of 5 at Shopco was under $5) because they were plain with a smooth fabric.  I went to Michael's and got an iron-on transfer pencil, fabric markers, and picked up a plain apron that they also had in the fabric section.  At home, I had the rest of the items I would need: pins, an iron and ironing board, the printed rhino pictures, and some sandpaper.  I also printed out a simple sun from my Word clip art to use as my test subject on the fifth towel, which would be mine.

Supplies

The process was pretty simple, if a little time-consuming due to the amount of detail in the pictures I had chosen.  I would hold the printed picture up to the window on our back door so that I could trace the design from the front of the paper onto the back with the transfer pencil (if you have a light table, it would do the same job without making your arms tired!).  Then I would go over the tracing again at the table, to make sure I had a good, heavy pencil line.  This required a lot of sharpening of the transfer pencil, to make sure I had a good line all the way around that didn't get too thick.

 

Next, I would cut out the paper design with a tab at the top, and use the tab to pin the design on the fabric, printed side up.  Having the printed design visible on the front made it easy to see exactly where it would be lined up.  I followed the directions for the transfer pencil, using a hot, no-steam setting on the iron and running over the design for a few minutes until it transferred, being very careful not to shift the paper while I was ironing.  With the pin holding it in place, it was easy to carefully turn up one corner to see if the lines were dark enough, without shifting the paper, and then go over it some more if necessary.  I used the white rhino twice, once on a towel and once on the apron, which just required going over the lines on the back of the paper with the pencil a second time, to make sure the design would transfer to a new piece of fabric.

Ironing the transfer

When it was done, the pink transfer lines on the fabric were still often a little faint, so having the picture to refer to made tracing the correct lines a little easier.  I would then pick the color of marker I wanted, and very carefully trace over the transfer lines on the fabric.  Smoothing the fabric over a piece of sandpaper before I started helped keep it from sliding around and bunching up as I worked.  I did need to keep an eye on the tip of the marker, which would eventually start to wear down and shed, making my lines less crisp.  But I could just pull off the loosened fuzz once near the end of each picture and that seemed to work just fine.  I would then go over the main outline of the design one more time with the marker, to make those lines a little heavier than the details.

Finished rhinos with front and back of paper showing

I even found, with my test design, that it was easy to color in the design with a second color, which didn't try to bleed outside the outline.

My colored-in sun

I let them dry completely overnight, and then, even though the markers said it wasn't necessary, I ran the iron over the designs again for a few minutes to try and heat set the colors, so they wouldn't fade in the wash.  To be safe, I ironed the backside of the fabric to make sure the iron didn't smear the ink, and put a piece of paper between my ironing board and the design, but the ink didn't transfer to the paper.  I haven't washed mine yet, so I don't know how well this process worked.

Heat setting the ink



So there you go: an easy, homemade Christmas project!  Even with the amount of detail involved in the rhinos, I got all five transfers plus my sun done in a long afternoon.  I imagine if you had a simple design to work with, it could all go very quickly.  It does require a steady hand, but that is all: no natural artistic talent is required.