A More "Sophisticated" Gift for a More Sophisticated Gal

I hope you all had a blessed Christmas!

And now that the gift giving has dwindled, I am free to share with you some of the handmade gifts that I made for family and friends.

And, hey, the 12 days of Christmas has just begun, so I'm not too late, right? right.

Let me begin by introducing you to my niece, Ruby.

Some things about her: she is beautiful and awesome and smart. She was born with a full head of dark, silky hair, which is even more impressive to me now that I have a 10 month old who has only a few Alphalpha-like sprigs of hair on the rear of his dome... and that's being generous.

She is now almost 10 (how did THAT happen???), and being the oldest of not only 4 children in her immediate family, is also the oldest of her generation in the extended family.

Therefore, I am sure, she is constantly surrounded by toys, cloths, and such that are below her maturity level.

Because of this, it was no surprise to me that, when I received her Christmas list this year, it consisted of:

nail polish

hats

books (God love her)

and my personal favorite... "more sophisticated clothing"

Who can blame her? I can't.

I did, however, have to think long and hard about what to make for her for Christmas.

So far, I haven't had to make anything for a preteen.

I was stumped.

Luckily, I wasn't stumped for long thanks to a chance meeting with a fabulous black Friday deal.

I had planned on buying some extra white towels at Kmart on black Friday.

They were on sale for 1.50... So cutting them up and using the terry fabric for something else was my plan.

However, when I got to the towel aisle, only aquamarine was left.

What to do? What to do?

Ah Ha! I had some scraps of white terry left over from another project. Not enough to really do anything with.. except make a little initial.

And this is how my preteen-friendly monogramed towels were born.

Step One:

Get yourself some towels. I was able to get 2 washcloths, 2 hand towels, and 2 bath towels for about 9 bucks! WHAT A STEAL!

Step Two:

Grab your heat n bond and trace, free hand, cricut, whatever your initials. I got away with freehanding this lowercase "r" because I chose a simple font, and mostly because I'm lazy and didn't want to add another step. You could also do symbols or whathaveyou. This project was so simple that I was thinking of doing some hooded towels with a boat or whale for Ben... but I digress.

Note: you want your initial to be a mirror image so you can iron it onto the back of your accent terry cloth.

Here's my accent terry cloth. I chose white for a classic, "sophisticated" look. :)

Step Three:

Iron on your heat n bond. Get it good with the iron so it sticks dispite the texture.

Step Four:

Cut it out!

I mean, seriously.

This is so simple, I feel silly making a tutorial.

Step Five:

Find the midde of your towel.

You might want to mark it with a fabric marker. You're going to line up that mark with the middle of your initial(s) and then iron on.

 Again, get it good with the iron so it sticks.

Step Six:

Serge or zigzag around the edges to keep that thing in place.

That's it!

Repeat on other towels of the set.

I had to snap a few shots on the towel rod in my guest bathroom. They turned out great if I do say so myself. And probably took me an hour for the whole project. I paired them with some tween body wash and accessories. Hopefully she liked them.  I know I liked that when I was her age, and I felt soooo much older. ha.