Tighten the handkerchief in an embroidery circle, tie a knot in the thread, and begin threading needle through the fabric, following the lines to form your shape.

Voila! You have an embroidered handkerchief!

Each one goes relatively quickly, but I would definitely recommend leaving plenty of time to work on these. It took me a few months of sporadically embroidering to get all 75 completed. They are the perfect thing to work on while watching TV on a lazy day. But don’t plan on doing too many at once unless you want sore fingers!

For the text on the handkerchief, I was inspired by this delectable little card:

Image via NightOwlPaperGoods.com

After browsing many free online fonts, trying out many different colors, and trying many designs, I came up with this:

When I first finished this design I was pleased. Unfortunately, the more and more I looked at it the less and less I liked it. Then I showed my two sisters and Mama Dalmatian, and they (very politely) expressed the same feeling that was creeping into my mind: Meh.

Enter amazing Sister K with her degree in graphic design and incredible talent. She managed to keep the bright colors but make it look less like a kindergarten project and more like a fun, whimsical save-the-date! Note to self: embrace help from others.

So much better! Next, I researched different ways to transfer the image onto my handkerchief. I thought about buying the Yudu and attempting silk-screening, but after watching a few how-to videos I was left less than confident in my ability to pull it off. My doubt + high price tag = wasn’t gonna happen. So I moved on to iron-transfer sheets, and purchased some that happened to be on sale at Michaels that week, which were Jolee’s Easy Image Transfer Sheets.

Personal photo of Easy Image Transfer Sheets from Jolee’s

A quick tip: when you are cutting out the image before ironing it, cut as close to the words as possible because you can see where the clear part of the transfer sheet ends on the handkerchief. Other than that, just iron your image onto your embroidered handkerchief and you have yourself a save the date!

My labor of love—the completed handkerchief!

I am going to fold and attach them to cards before sending them, but we’ll get into that more later! (Hint: it will involve me developing a full blown love affair with Paper Source.)

Did you take on any ambitious projects in the name of a cute wedding?

*All photos personal unless otherwise noted