Mother’s Day Tea Towels

Happy Mother’s Day! It’s a special day for every mother, but also especially fun for the whole family to celebrate their favorite woman – YOU! It’s important to start teaching kids the importance of Mother’s Day early and to celebrate it, so even if your little one is still too small to get you that spa day you really need, or if you don’t want presents that Dad bought and put a “To Mom, From Daisy” sticker on, getting creative with them is a great option the help them feel like they’re celebrating! Besides, spending time with your little ones is the best gift that they can ever give, right?

Luckily for you, we have no shortage of fun DIY Mother’s Day ideas to choose from in past years here, but our newest, and most favorite, DIY project this week is our DIY Mother’s Day Tea Towels! Of course, we wouldn’t recommend something to you that couldn’t be done in one of our tents, and luckily our Super Duper 4-Kid II Dome Tent is ready to take on the task!

What you will need:

• Tea towels
  • We made it easy for you: You can order our favorite, recommended ones here.
• Potatoes
  • Depending on how many different stamps you want will dictate how many potatoes you will need. The more potatoes, the more shapes and designs!
• A sharp knife
  • Need we warn you? Adults only for this one!
• Acrylic paint
  • We used orange, teal and green – but taking your little one with you to the craft store so he or she can pick their favorite colors makes it extra special!
• A small bucket of water
  • This keeps keep the potatoes from turning black, and also a quick and easy way to clean your potato stamp.
• Paper plates
  • You will need one for each color, as they will act as your palette.
• Permanent marker
  • This will be to draw your shapes onto your potato.
• Towel or rags
  • Use some that you don’t mind getting dirty – they are for cleaning off your potato stamps for the next color you want to use with it.
• Thick cardboard
  • Put this underneath your tea towel to absorb any paint that may go through the fabric.
• Optional: Paintbrush to write names or other messages.

How to make:

1. Before you get started, iron the tea towels so you have a smooth, non-wrinkled canvas to work with.
2. Lay down the tea towels on top of the cardboard and set aside.
3. Adults only! Cut the potato a full slice about ¼ into the potato, so that about half of it can be left as a handle.
4. Wipe the inside exposed part of the potato dry.
5. With a permanent marker, draw whatever shape you’d like your stamp to be.
6. Adults only! Remove the parts of the potato that are NOT part of the shape, cutting about halfway into the potato. (Once you’re done cutting your shape, you should be left with about half the potato as a handle with your stamp about ¼ of the potato high.)
7. Once you have your stamp cut out, put it into the bucket of water to keep it from turning colors.
8. Repeat steps 3-7 as many times as you’d like to keep creating different styles of stamps.
9. Once you have all your stamps ready, grab your paper plates and put a large dollop of paint on each, with a different color on each plate.
10. Grab your tea towel and piece of cardboard.
11. Take your stamp out of the water, pat dry with a towel or rag and start stamping away!
12. Once done with your color, just dip your potato stamp back into the water bowl and clean with paper towels or a cloth before moving on to another color.
13. If you’d like to write something with paintbrushes, now is the time!
14. Once you’re done, let your tea towels dry for a couple of hours before folding up.

There you have it! Now that you’re done and the towels are dry, you’re probably wondering what you can do with them now. Luckily, tea towels have lots of uses other than drying dishes, so we’ve come up with some ideas for your tea towels to keep them useful around the house.

Where to use your tea towels:

• Fold your tea towels neatly and slide into oven handles or refrigerator handles as a cute, interchangeable kitchen decoration.
• Put your tea towels on the inside of a bowl where you’d put rolls, biscuits or other bread and wrap them up to keep them warm.
• Use them to line a serving tray or basket to keep dishes from sliding around or clinking.
• If they’re small enough, you can fold them up and use as napkins for meal time.
• Use them as casual placemats for quick meals at breakfast or lunch.
• Line them between pots and pans to prevent scratches and banging inside of drawers or cabinets.

The Super Duper 4-Kid II Dome Tent

We really mean it when we say this tent is fun for the WHOLE family – It is large enough at 58 in x 58 in x 46 to fit 2 parents AND 3 kids inside! It’s the perfect spot for family fun, and with the waterproof floor it is an even more perfect spot for potato stamping and getting messy with no worries at all.

This tent is not only huge, it is totally durable. Quality is important to us, so the radius-cut hook and loop means no cuts or scrapes and our Super Poles™ are patented G-3 safety-coated to prevent splinters or shattering. Fast and easy assembly is also important to us, and this tent won’t disappoint even the most confused parent with it’s color coded poles and pockets. For the kids, the 19” tunnel ports with roll-down flaps mean you can connect it to other tents for even more fun and the No-See-Um mesh allows for not only great visibility, but also great air circulation in the spring and summer air. Yes – It is also ready for indoor AND outdoor use with it’s tight weave for protection from bugs.

Let us know!

Did you make your Mother’s Day Tea Towels? Let us know how they turned out in the comments below!