It must be my Irish heritage, but I LOVE potatoes, as do my children.

So maybe it is not surprising that in my family potato stamping is one of our favourite craft projects. What is great about it is that you really don’t need to get any supplies. All you need are:

-a  few potatoes
-a sharp knife
-a talented carver
-and some paint

My daughter loves the fact that she can ask for any animal and within minutes she has a personalised stamp ready at her disposal.

We used potatoes that fitted easily in the girls hands, cut them in two so that we had a really flat surface to work with. I reckon that you should maybe start with stars or squares or anything really simple to get the hang of carving, and then the sky is the limit. Make sure to wipe the potato stamp well when you have finished carving as all the starch will have oozzed out and it doesn’t mix well with the paint. We squirted undiluted paint into some jam jar tops (I am so glad I keep all of those kind of things, you never know when they are going to come in useful), and then the fun started.

I think that next time I might try and actually get some fabric paint so that the girls can decorate their own T-shirts, but this time round we just stamped for the fun of stamping…..

- Emilie