Potato Stamping

I had a friend ask to see our process for potato stamping when I mentioned that my little guy and I were going to stamp some of our wrapping paper this year. So here you go!

Start with potatoes. (Shocked?)
Russet are probably best, as they are firmer, but I had Yukons, so that's what we used.

Cut them in halfish, considering the shape of the design you want to carve and also how the potato will be easiest to hold.

Sketch your design with a toothpick or similar tool before carving. Or don't, if you're not anal retentive.

I found that I had the best control over my carving when I held the paring knife like this:

Carve your design into the potato vertically, then cut away the sides of the potato to a height of about 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

Here are my finished designs! Pat them dry before stamping.

Dip your stamp in paint. You may need to tap some of the paint off before starting on the paper.

Stamp carefully straight down and lift it straight back up.

If you don't pull it straight back up, you'll get smearies! Like this...

Apparently, I greatly overestimated my Wigglebug's stamping abilities... so he kind of just "painted" with the tree stamp. And the finished product:

Like me, my dear son quickly loses interest in those tasks in which he realizes he won't excel, so I finished the stamping myself... sigh.

You can also score a design in the stamp, which will catch more paint and show up more thickly on the paper, like this:

My finished papers:

And the next day, we went with a less-structured, better-for-three-year-olds free painting activity for the rest of the wrapping paper.

:-D