Frugal Friday--Cheap, Easy, Versatile Gift!!!

I saw someone give these at a birthday party this last week and I was hooked! Personalized towels/beach towels are a great gift idea for birthdays, graduations, weddings, and for folks of all ages. This towel is a gift for my special cousin Ashlee who is graduating from High School in a couple of weeks. I wanted to give her something she would use, and something that would be meaningful and show her I love her, and yet didn't break our small budget. I plan to put together a gift basket of things she can use at college to go with her towel out of my Walgreens stash of freebies.

Steps to making the towel:

1. Cut letters out of cute fabric colors.

2. Trace letters on Wonder-Under, a fusible paper sold at Wal-Mart for about $1 a yard. Be sure to place the letters right side up on the rough side of the paper, then trace around with a pencil and cut out. I probably used 1/5 or 1/6 of a yard for the name Ashlee.

3. Iron the cloth letters to the Wonder-Under letters.

4. Peel the paper off the cloth letters (there will now be a sticky adhesive on the wrong side of the letters). Stick the letters on the towel in the order you want them in and iron until they are firmly attached.

5. Zig-Zag stitch around the letters. I went around each letter 3 times and was done with the towel in exactly one hour.

Tips for making them fun:

If the person has the letter "i" in their name it is cute to use a large star/flower/circle button to dot the "i." Embellish the name with ribbons/buttons/lace, etc. as you desire. You could make a "Best Mom Ever" beach towel for Mother's Day, a "Bride and Groom" set of towels for a wedding, or come up with other holiday appropriate sayings or nicknames, initials, etc. I thought about doing a matching washcloth and handtowel, but I decided to start with just the beach towel/bath towel. Now no one will accidentally steal Ashlee's towel out of the dorm laundry room!