Unpaper Towels: Easy DIY Tutorial

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Check out this easy tutorial for “unpaper” towels that roll up and velcro together like a roll of paper towels. Unpaper towels are an eco-friendly and stylish way to reduce your waste. Want to know more? Follow my tips below to reduce your plastic use and the use of single use products.
 
Learn how to make these simple unpaper towel tutorial
This post was updated 10/9/2018

DIY Unpaper Towels are a great way to be stylish and eco-friendly at the same time! It all started when my friend Sarah posted something on Facebook that she wanted someone to get unpaper towels from a seller on Etsy for a wedding present. They were over $50, plus shipping! I told her I would make them for her instead, and thankfully, she loved the idea. 

Aren’t these a great way to be more eco-friendly? We are constantly trying to find ways to reduce trash and lower our carbon footprint (like cloth diapering, making our own cleaners, ditching plastic, and making homemade products). Plus, I’m super cheap and hate buying paper towels. They are so expensive, and you literally buy them just to throw them away. Geesh. It’s like throwing money in the trash. 

There are so many ways to be more eco-conscious these days, and one of the first and easiest things to do is to reduce your consumption of single-use products and reduce plastic. Single-use products are things (ahem, like paper towels) that you would use one time and then throw them away. They contribute to unnecessary and excess trash, which is never a good thing. Of course, sometimes we don’t have another option other than to use single use products. Back in the day, like when I originally wrote this post, I was a huge stickler. I used to think there was never an appropriate time for a single-use product.

Then I had kids and had to learn some grace. It’s good to be aware of problems with our environment and the unsustainable amount of trash we create. But, we each individually can only do so much, and sometimes we fall back on having to use single-use products. Like when we redid our kitchen and had to rely on a lot of paper plates and microwaveable meals. It killed me a little inside, but I gave myself grace. We’re all doing the best we can with what we have, right?

Anyway, these Unpaper Towels are a great way to ditch the paper towels and be a little more eco-friendly. 

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How To Reduce Plastic Use And Single Use Products.

  • Choose glass or metal straws instead of plastic ones.
  • Use reusable containers to bring your lunch to work. These glass containers are awesome! 
  • Instead of paper napkins, try cloth napkins. 
  • Bring a reusable glass or metal water bottle instead of buying plastic ones. 
  • Keep a set of silverware in your car if you have to go out to eat.
  • Use beeswax wraps instead of plastic wrap.

Unpaper Towel Materials

  • Terry cloth – about 1/2 yard
  • Cotton or flannel fabric – about 1/2 yard
  • Matching thread
  • Velcro

Unpaper Towels Tutorial

Step 1: Cut terry cloth and cotton or flannel fabric into 10 equal squares that are 10 by 10 of both fabrics. Make sure they are very even!
Cutting fabric for unpaper towels
 
Step 2: Pin right sides together and sew like a pillow leaving about a 3″ gap to turn right side out. Sometimes, I like to cut off extra fabric on the corners.
*To make this easier and skip a step, you could pin wrong sides together and surge the whole thing and then follow the remaining steps.
 
Sewing unpaper towels
 
Step 3: Turn right side out and then iron flat.
 
Ironing unpaper towels flat
 
Step 4: Top stitch around the edges about 1/4” from the seam. Then through the middle of the unpaper towel, sew a wiggly line from one corner to the adjacent corner. This ensures when you wash it that they fabric in the middle doesn’t come apart, which is very annoying.
 
Sewing line down the bidding of the unpaper towel
 
Step 5: Cut velcro into squares and sew on velcro. I sewed the soft velcro on the terry cloth side and the rougher velcro on the cotton side. Sew two of each on each side. If you have a snap applicator (like this one)  it would be a lot easier to use snaps instead of velcro!
 
Sewing velcro on unpaper towels
Sew two of the same velcro on two corner and the opposite velcro on the other side on the other corners without velcro. Sounds kind of confusing, but hopefully the picture above helps.
 
sewing velcro on unpaper towels
 
Unpaper Towels
 
Step 6: Put the velcro together and roll up like a paper towel roll. Every time you need unpaper towels, just “tear” one off. Use it and wash.

Aren’t these unpaper towels really adorable and fun? I wish I got to keep them! This is a great weekend project and so eco-friendly! What do you do to reduce trash?

Need more eco-friendly ideas… check these out!

 

110 Comments

  1. This is fabulous! Maybe if I put something like this on the paper towel roll, my future father in law will have less to complain about not having paper towels around.

    Reply

  3. Wow-this is so neat!! I have really been thinking about the amount of paper towels that we use-pretty unnecessary!! I am just learning to sew, maybe this could be a good project to practice on!!

    Reply

  14. I have to agree with everyone else, this is an amazing idea! We don’t use any paper in our house, and instead have a drawer that is overflowing with rags – which are all just washcloths we bought on sale at Target 🙂 I think this would be a great help in our kitchen, since my youngest is now opening up the top drawers, taking all the rags, and then hiding them about the house!

    Reply

  15. LOVE this idea. I keep trying to get rid of paper towels in my house and this look like a fun way to do it. Very cute fabric too. 🙂

    Reply

  16. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I saw those on Etsy but there was just no way I was spending $50! We’re using old towels, socks, etc. now for most cleaning. I wondered how the roll worked, I never thought of velcro. Awesome.
    Janet.

    Reply

  18. Those are cute! I just have a rag drawer that holds 2 king size cotton flannel sheets that were cut into 6 by 6 inch squares. This is much cuter.

    Reply

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