Kim’s challenge this week is

Monday, Dec. 7: Dare to… give homemade gifts!

Nothing is more special than a gift made by you. Try out something new to give this year – ideas include bath and body items, kitchen gifts, hand-sewn clothing or home decor.

My project is actually a surprise for one of our new family traditions.

Of course, since I’m putting this out for the entire world to see, I guess the cats out of the bag. If you’re one of Rob’s female cousins, do me a favor & stop reading so you can still be surprised!

See, Rob’s family is kinda gigantic. There are 7 female cousins/significant others in our generation {well, technically 9 but 2 don’t live around here}. Last year, we decided to start a new tradition.

Cousins Cookie Camp!

One Saturday before Christmas, we all get together at one of our houses and bake cookies. It’s a way for everyone to learn the family recipes that have been passed down from older generations and test out some new recipes too. {I think my Cranberry Orange Walnut “Cookies” will be making an appearance.} Plus we all get to hang out, which doesn’t happen nearly enough.

I wanted to create something useful for all the girls to commemorate the occasion.

What do you need besides a Kitchen Aid for making cookies?

A place to wipe your fingers!

A plain ole boring white tea towel got spruced up with some festive polka dot fabric & grosgrain ribbon.

This was cheap too! The 7 towels, fabric, & grosgrain ribbon cost me $25 total ~ Or about $3.60/towel!

On the grosgrain ribbon I embroidered “cousins cookie camp 2009”.

I debated about embroidering it or not ~ didn’t want it to be too corny ~ but I’m glad I did. The right-justified small point font & all lowercase letters keep it modern, instead of lame.

As I finished up the tea towels, I held one up to my waist.

See, I’m a messy baker. Ok… I’m inherently messy but adding flour & eggs to the equation makes for an especially messy time. I’m always resisting the urge to wipe my fingers on my pants because I left the tea towel on the opposite side of the kitchen.

And it hit me!

Tea Towel Apron.

Add a couple ribbon belt loops and some rickrack… VOILA!

A completely perfect place to wipe my gooey fingers after cleaning the beaters {& by “cleaning the beaters” I mean “meticulously squeegeed off the batter with my fingers and into my mouth”}.

And if you don’t want to wear it as an apron, just remove the ribbon. The loops provide a pretty handy place to hang the towel up.

I hope the girls like them!

Big THANK YOU to both my mothers. I pre-washed both the towels & fabric at my mom-in-law’s, then stitched it all up at my mom’s tricked out sewing room/basement. She has an embroidery machine! It’s totally sweet.

The embroidery adds a special touch and I’m pretty positive I would not have done it by hand.

Yup… Absolutely-positively-without-a-doubt would not have embroidered all 7 by hand. {Me=not patient} It was also awesome to not have to buy any notions, like thread or interfacing.

I’ll post a complete “How To” on Thursday. Without the embroidery, this whole project is pretty beginner. You could even do the whole thing with “Stitch Witchery” right in your apartment!

Don’t forget to pop over to Kim’s & check out everyone’s fabulous projects

Click here to see my previous Dare to DIY projects!