Kickstarter Update: Tea Towel and Mug Pre Orders (also Known as 50 ways to photograph a tea towel)

Feltmeupdesigns Rainbow doodle bird tea towel

So this past week I have been basking  in the glow of Kickstarter success and the glorious sunshine here in Blighty!( Sadly I don't tan... or burn... I have Goth genes and am genetically predisposed towards pasty! Still slapping on that sun cream tho melanoma is no joke!)

Feltmeupdesigns Rainbow doodle bird tea towel

If you missed out on the kickstarter you can pre order mugs and tea towels here in my special Rainbow Doodle Birds Shop. Current estimated time of arrival is around the end of July as I can't order any until Kickstarter releases the funds. I'm offering mugs and tea towels at a special introductory price on pre order so grab em now before they go up!

Feltmeupdesigns Rainbow doodle bird tea towel

Kickstarter backers check your inboxes I sent you an exclusive code so you can add on tea towels and mugs and any thing else from my webshop without having to shell out for postage again, you can also find the code in the exclusive backer update on Kickstarter if you deleted the email.

My Packaging table... we're gonna need a bigger table!

I've got a head start on my rewards making the birds for those who selected rewards with birds, getting the art work done and ordering the paper rewards which arrived in a brick of paper 2 days ago. Today I'm going to coerce Mr Felt into helping me sort them into piles and start bagging them up ready for shipping. (I might bribe him with ice cream!)

Rainbow doodle Birds Everwhere!

The piles of Kickstarter rewards are taking over the studio!

The Rewards I've made so far

I've had 3 photoshoots trying to get a decent picture of the tea towel and basically have forgotten everything I ever knew about photography! After photo shoot number 3 I think we got it!

Piles of Post cards, prints and stickers

 Feltemupdesigns.com got a make over new landing page and a brand new Kickstarter Adventure page to freshen it up... because I'm super proud about my Kickstarter! Also because it needed a spruce up!

Quick heads up as soon as the tea towels arrive I'll be shutting ALL my shops for a couple of weeks to process the rewards and then have a break... if you need something and were planning on buying it last week in July/first week in august probably best to buy it now!

xx
mel

50 Ways To Use a Tea Towel - The Final Installment

Ok so I know you have been following this exciting tea towel adventure with great anticipation... will she do it? What will she do next? But I am sorry to say that this is the final installment of 50 ways to use a tea towel!

46. Make a pencil case (there would be lovely spiffy photos of step by step stuff but my sewing machine decided that it would make a horrible noise and throw up on the fabric half way through so I did a lot of swearing while taking the thing apart and then putting it back together again, then unpicking and re sewing so you'll have to work this one out yourself. Clue: it involves a zip!)

47. Make a pocket buddy in fact you could make 16 of them, one in every colour, then they would match every outfit you have!

All you need to do is cut out your bird, sew it, wrong sides facing to some spiffy fabric (I used these nice Cath Kidston scraps that I have been hoarding) leaving a gap so you can stuff it with stuffing. Turn it right way round, stuff with stuff and carefully sew the gap closed.

48. Make a lavender bag/hanging decoration, same as above just add a hanging tag and lavender if you want a smelly bird.

49. Applique patches on to your bag/jacket/boyfriends work trousers/kids clothes.

50. Run a kickstarter! 30 days, 50 ways to use a tea towel, 150 backers (at last count) it's been fun... and exhausting but mostly fun! There are just 2 days left to grab your Kickstarter rewards. Thank you to everyone who has put up with me acting like a crazy person, backed, shared, given me cake and wine and coffee to keep me going!

You can add your idea on how to use a tea towel to this post on facebook or comment here and I shall be doing a special blog post with all your ideas soon.

Thanks for reading
X
Mel

 

50 Ways To Use a Tea Towel - The Crafty Edit

So it has been noted that my lovely doodle birds tea towel is far too nice to dry you dishes with and if you don't want to hang it on your wall, wear it like a hat or use it for first aid then why not make something lovely with it?

I've scoured the internet for free patterns and tutorials to find some great projects and free instructables you could use to make something amazing with your doodle birds tea towel!

37. Make a nice apron... ok so there are 2 ways you can do this you could simply grab a belt (like Babble suggests) and improvise an apron (if for example you found a giant spider living in the pocket of your regular apron and had to take it into the garden while screaming and then never speak of it again, ture story!)

38. Follow this pattern/instructable from Fyne Designs to make an apron in just 10 minutes (or maybe 20 for the cak handed amonst us!) it involves a little sewing but as a beginners project it's a pretty simple idea.

39. You could buy loads and make a lovely table cloth! Or just 3 and make a table runner... if you want to get all fancy then why not mix it up with one or two doodle birds tea towels and some pretty stripy ones from the pound shop in coordinating colours. Here's a pattern to show you how.

40. You could make a fancy bag! So you could sew 2 together to make a giant tote bag, just ad some handles or you could follow this tutorial and make a cute drawstring bag, I had one like this for my pumps in PE at school which stopped the rest of my bag getting foot stinky!

41. Now this one I love! Welcome to the House Of Mouse has this awesome super cute tutorial for a 30 minute skirt for a toddler! A skirt... covered in doodle birds! Think about it... I reckon you could make an adult version with 3 or 4 but you'd probably have to line it then, or maybe just use one as a panel in a skirt with some lovely vintage fabric!

42. Now here's an easy one, napkins! If you just snip the tea towel down the middle horizontally and hem up each side you have a lovely napkin!

Image credit Food 52

43. Make a cushion from a tea towel... doodle birds in your living room? Oh yes!

44. Make a wallet from your tea towel... I'd suggest that you cut your doodle birds out length ways so you can have a full doodle bird on each side of the fold and inside too! The tutorial from Obsessively Stitching looks relatively simple, even to it says boys wallet I'm sure a girl could use it too!

45. Tea Towel Shopping bag holder (my nan's favourite, she had dozens of these hanging about the house! Craft bits has a really simple tutorial even Mr Felt could manage it!

The Kickstarter Tea Towel  Project is still live and we have 5 days to go so it's quite fitting that I leave you with 5 ways to use a tea towel left to cover! I've added a new stretch goal... if we hit my next target all backers requiring posting will recieve an extra Barn Owl postcard sized mini print in their parcel! Yay! It's a big stretch this one...read more about it in my latest Kickstarter update here. You might think it's a lot for just 5 days but I've seen what you guys can do in just 2! So please share if you can't pledge... I really appreciate any support.

 Thanks
x
Mel

50 ways to use a tea towel part 7 In Which We Learn Stuff

A complete and accurate history of the tea towel based on 20 minutes of internet research... true to the best of my limited knowledge! (probably totally inaccurate, do not quote this in your doctoral thesis!)

The term tea towel seems to have been coined in the 18th century... possibly around the time us Brits became tea obsessed!

A brief internet search throws up a myriad of different origins of the humble tea towel from:

Way 22 - A towel made of fine linen for drying the best china

Way 23 - A beautiful decoratively embroidered towel which was used to line a tea tray to catch drips and/or:

Way 24 - To prevent the tea service sliding about on the tray.

In the 19th century Tea Time became a very popular almost universal daily event in Britain. Tea Time developed into a very serious affair accompanied by the families finest china, crystal and linens. The British lady of the house took great pride in her tea service and display and most probably her tea towel tho it's not as nifty as mine and cannot be fashioned into:

Way 25 - A very fine turban for the small of head

Way 26 - A rather splendid shawl or scarf

but could also be :

Way 27 - Wrapped around a tea pot as a sort of cosy. (ok we did this with a coffee pot but a teapot is different right? And I still have 23 more to go so give me a break!)

Way 28 - Used as a basket warmer, laid over the top of a serving basket or bowl to keep scones of fresh muffin warm (English muffin folks, the type you toast... not the huge cakey type of muffin which you should stuff in your face without warming first!) 

Way 29 - Ladies would often embroider tea towels with their own motifs... if ours wasn't gorgeous enough for you you could always add some embellishments, a french knot or two... perhaps some sequins? Maybe not the sequins!

The material tea towels are made from also provides a workable background to be decorated with embroidery. The ladies of this period often embroidered their own personal tea towels used during tea time

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/facts_5615509_history-tea-towel.html

The material tea towels are made from also provides a workable background to be decorated with embroidery. The ladies of this period often embroidered their own personal tea towels used during tea time

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/facts_5615509_history-tea-towel.html

The material tea towels are made from also provides a workable background to be decorated with embroidery. The ladies of this period often embroidered their own personal tea towels used during tea time

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/facts_5615509_history-tea-towel.html

 

Way 30 - As an improvised canvas, while my lovely doodle birds tea towel is far too gorgeous to paint on if you have ran out of canvas and are at the mercy of the muse, like Van Gogh you could improvise a canvas with a tea towel. Apparently he often did this and a still life with flowers painted on a tea towel fetched £2.1 million at an auction in 2000!

Ta da! 

Thus ends our completely inaccurate history of the tea towel! My rather splendid rainbow doodle birds tea towel is available at my Kickstarter here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/feltmeupdesigns/feltmeupdesigns-rainbow-doodle-birds-printed-tea-thttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/feltmeupdesigns/feltmeupdesigns-rainbow-doodle-birds-printed-tea-t

50 Ways To Use A Tea Towel Part 2: Kickstarter Update

So, quite incredibly, my Kickstarter project is 100% funded in just under 2 days! Wowser... huge huge huge thanks to everyone for their support! Thank you!

So I know you aren't here to listen to me gush about how wonderful you are for supporting me so here's what you came for 

50 Ways To Use A Tea Towel Part 2- The Baking Special

 5. Use a tea towel under your mixing bowl to stop it sliding everywhere.

 6. Wipe your grubby paws on it (unless they are covered in chocolate in which case lick them clean, who wastes chocolate like that!)

 7. Hot! Hot! Hot! Don't burn your fingers if you can't find the oven gloves, double up your tea towel and use it to remove hot brownies from the oven!

8. Place a damp tea towel under your chopping board to stop it sliding about (especially if you are using John's over sized chopper!)

9. Having baked your brownies, make your self a nice pot of coffee and wrap the tea towel around it to act as a cozy! (tip do this before you put hot water in or it's virtually impossible to wrap a hot coffee pot in a tea towel!) and then have a brownie with your coffee!

More ways to use a tea towel coming soon.

The Kickstarter Doodle Birds Tea Towel project is still going, visit the page to see how much we've raised so far and to get your own tea towel and exclusive rewards.

50 Uses for a Tea Towel part 1

 So over the next 30 days while my Kickstarter is running I'm going to try and discover/share 50 uses for a tea towel as it's day one lets start with a few to get the ball rolling.

1. Pin it to the wall, it's pretty enough

 2: Use it to wrap a wine bottle, come one we all know what's in those wine bags anyway and this is much prettier!

 3: Use a tea towel to wrap a gift, maybe a foodie gift, maybe not but this way the wrapping is a gift too and it's not gonna be thrown out like paper wrapping so it's better for the environment, and cuter!
Add a homemade tag and pretty ribbon and it's a perfect little parcel!

4: If you really must you could always use it to dry your dishes!

Remember you can support the Kickstarter here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/feltmeupdesigns/feltmeupdesigns-rainbow-doodle-birds-printed-tea-t

You don't need to pledge but please share to help me reach my goal.

More Uses for a Tea Towel tomorrow!

Thanks
Mel