Every December, grandparents patiently unwrap another candle, another tin of shortbread or another photo frame that joins last year’s in the cupboard.
A personalised tea towel gift, however, goes on the oven door and is picked up and used every night.
It works because it carries something only your family has: a grandchild’s drawing, a recipe in handwriting nobody else can copy, the dog.
We print one towel at a time with no minimum order. A product printed in Australia from $35, including delivery. It’s even more affordable when you get 2-3 more as extra gifts.
Here are six ideas, and for each one, the exact file to provide for a perfect result.
1. A Grandchild’s Drawing, Signed and Dated
Ask a grandparent what they’d grab in a fire, and the fridge drawings come up quickly. Put one on a tea towel, and it stops curling at the corners.
This is the best gift for grandparents on the list, and the easiest to get right.
Give your child a black texta and half a sheet of A4, and ask them to draw themselves, the family, or Nan and Pop. Big, filling the page.
Then get them to write their name and age underneath in their own writing. That wobbly “Ruby, 5” is the part that makes people tear up.
Black texta beats pencil, which photographs grey, and crayon is fine if you can get the photograph perfect on your phone.
Got two or three grandkids? Put their drawings side by side on one towel.
What to send: a phone photo of the drawing laid flat by a window in daylight, with the phone held straight above it and no shadow across the paper. Use the image directly from your camera roll rather than through a messaging app. You can upload directly to our online designer, or you can use the quote form to hire our graphic artist.
2. Grandma’s Recipe in Her Own Handwriting
The recipe card with the butter stain on it is worth more than every cookbook in the house. It’s also the one thing in the kitchen that can’t be replaced.
A handwritten recipe tea towel is the most requested personalised towel there is, and the one people hold onto.
Pick the recipe the family actually argues over: the scones, the Christmas pudding, the pavlova that only works in her oven.
Then decide whether you want it as it is, splashes and crossings-out included, or cleaned up so the writing sits on plain white.
Most families keep the stains. They’re half the story.
It’s also the easiest gift to multiply. Order one for every sibling and cousin, and the recipe ends up in every branch of the family.
What to send: a flatbed scan of the card at 600 DPI if you can. Otherwise, a phone photo taken straight on in daylight, with the card filling the frame. If the recipe runs over two cards or onto the back of an envelope, send both sides. Use our online design tool to upload multiple designs or send them through the quote form, and we’ll ask our artist to set them up on one towel and send you a proof.
3. A Family Photo, or the Year in Photos
A photo tea towel is the idea most likely to disappoint, and it’s rarely the printing’s fault. It’s the file.
A tea towel print is big. Fabric is more forgiving than paper, but to fill the towel you want roughly 3,500 pixels on the long edge.
A photo straight off a modern phone is about 4,000 pixels wide and prints well.
The same photo after a trip through Facebook is about 2,000 pixels, and an Instagram copy is around 1,000.
Both come out soft.
Send the original off your camera roll, not a copy that’s been through Facebook or a group chat.
Two layouts work well. One good photo, cropped square, with the family name and the year underneath.
Or a grid of six small photos from the year, which is kinder to older files because each one prints smaller.
What to send: Upload to the online design tool the original from the camera roll of whoever took it. If your sister took the good one, ask her to email the original file, not forward it on WhatsApp. Scanning an old print? Use 600 DPI.
4. The Dog (or the Cat, or the Chooks)
Nobody expects the dog on a tea towel, which is the whole point.
It suits the person who has everything, the dog-mad uncle, and anyone whose pet is the real head of the household.
A good pet photo is close, sharp and taken at the animal’s eye level, which means getting down on the floor.
Face filling most of the frame, plain background, daylight. Add the name underneath, and you’re done.
If every photo of the dog is blurry (most are), get a child to draw it instead.
A five-year-old’s drawing of the family kelpie makes a better gift than a perfect photo, and it prints sharp whatever the camera did.
What to send: Use the online design tool and upload one photo, the original from your camera roll, with the pet’s face in focus. Not a screenshot from a video.
5. The Places That Made Your Family
Some people don’t want a photo of themselves in the kitchen. Give them the names of their places instead.
The hometown and the street. Every town the family has lived in, in order.
The paddock names on the farm, the beaches you go back to every summer, the stations on the line Pop drove for thirty years.
Set in strong, plain type, a list of names looks like a designed souvenir rather than a homemade gift, and it means everything to the person who lived it.
It’s the best idea here for the hard-to-buy-for and for anyone who’s moved away. It’s also the safest to order, because there’s no photo quality to worry about.
What to send: Use our online design tool to add the text and any words you require. Or you can use the quote form to hire our artist to typeset what you want it, with any dates. We set the type and send you a proof before anything is printed.
6. A Painting by the Family Artist
Most families have one: the aunt who paints, the teenager whose art folder comes home at the end of the year, the grandfather who took up watercolours at seventy.
Full-colour digital printing reproduces what’s on the paper, brushstrokes and colour washes included, so a painting that’s been leaning against a wall ends up in use every day.
It serves two people at once. The artist sees their work printed properly, and whoever unwraps it gets an original nobody else has.
Getting the painting framed usually costs more than a tea towel, and you can’t give everyone in the family the frame.
What to send: a 600 DPI scan of the whole sheet if it fits on a scanner. For bigger work, photograph it flat in daylight, out of the frame, with no glass in front of it and the camera straight on.
Ordering One Before Christmas
One towel is a normal order here, not a favour you have to ask for. The quickest way is the online design tool.
Upload your photo or scan, add any words, and you’ll see the towel before you pay. A single personalised tea towel costs under $35 delivered.
It’s printed on our 50/50 cotton-linen blend with water-based inks that soak into the fibre. The towel stays soft and absorbent, and the print won’t peel.
Want someone else to set it up, say for a recipe across two cards or a grid of six photos? Send your files through the quote form, and we’ll prepare the artwork and send you a proof first.
Buying for the whole family? The same design on several towels sorts out every grandparent in one order.
For Christmas, get your order in by 15 November. Our closing and reopening dates are on the Christmas order deadlines page, and the personalised tea towels page goes deeper on photo sizes and layouts.
FAQ
How much does a personalised tea towel cost?
A single personalised tea towel costs under $35 delivered from Tea Towel Draw, with no minimum order. You design it online, see a preview before paying, and it’s printed in Australia on a cotton-linen blend. Bulk discounts apply if you order several, and the quote form will price a bigger order.
Is a phone photo good enough to print on a tea towel?
Yes, if it’s the original. A photo straight off a modern phone is about 4,000 pixels wide, which prints sharply across a tea towel. The problem is copies: Facebook shrinks photos to about 2,000 pixels and Instagram to about 1,000, and both print soft. Send the file from the camera roll of whoever took it.
Can I put a photo and a recipe on the same tea towel?
Yes. A drawing with a recipe, a photo with a name and date, or several grandkids’ drawings side by side all work on one towel. Keep it to two or three elements so each stays big enough to read. Send everything through the quote form, and we’ll lay it out and send you a proof before printing.
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