Uninspired Potato Prints

18 Comments

I’ve got crafter’s block right now. Last week I was feeling all inspired to do creative things, but this week it’s like all that creativity & motivation went out the window. It might be because we’re getting ready to move into a place with enough room for me to have my own (non-dungeon) studio. I think I’m so busy fantasizing about that well-lit space, my creativity is all consumed.

I wanted to do something crafty today, even if it was little. I was looking back through my archives to see if I could get any inspiration that way & came across a tutorial I did a couple years ago on how to make limited edition prints by using a styrofoam plate. It’s a super easy & very fun process. I got all excited to make a greeting card or something, then realized there were no styrofoam plates in my house. There was, however, a 15lb bag of potatoes on our kitchen counter, so I snagged one & started carving with my Xacto.

Bunting & triangles have been sort of a thing on the interwebs & I admittedly love triangles. What a great shape! They’re even more fun when they’re irregular. So I made a series of triangles. Bunting, if you will. I thought it’d be cute to do a little bunting banner & then write a message on the dried triangles. Great idea if you have high-quality printing ink. The speedball ink I used for the potato print is chalky & not water-resistant. It was more than a little annoying to work with. Needless to say this is a very limited run print; a run of 1.

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    1. summer says:

      cute! your creative muse is apparently still with you. best wishes with your move! can’t wait to see the new digs & what you make of it.

    2. I think its so funny that you used a potato for this creation but it turned out SOOO cute, I want one! Those spooky prints are pretty cool, too. I’ll have to do that activity with my kids.
      -CK

    3. pretty darn cute for being uninspired!

    4. Shaela says:

      very fun! I used to make potato stamps when I was a child :)

    5. Becka says:

      GREAT ideas! I so want to try.

    6. I love this!! old fashion ink – too cool. and potato stamps, can’t beet them!

      hope you saw my post on YOU yesterday! ;)

    7. Erin says:

      I think it looks cool. Lots of potential! Good luck with the move!!

    8. jen says:

      Totally cute for being uninspired! I dig it.

    9. Britta says:

      Maybe with the right paint it would be more inspiring – turned out great in the end! We used to make our own Christmas wrapping paper, as a family, with potato stamps. My dad was an art teacher so we’d go to his classroom and lay out a big roll of craft paper and go to town. Fun stuff.

    10. If I tried something like that it would probably end up looking like a big blob. It’s really cute how it turned out though.
      I’ve been wanting to try some sort of block printing on a pair of sheets, but I don’t think using potato’s would be the best idea :)

    11. Kami says:

      I love that! How could you ever be missing that gene? I don’t think it’s possible.

    12. cata says:

      simply fantastic!
      Cata

    13. macy dawn says:

      Looks like fun! How did you get the white letters on after you stamped the card? White ink? I love the curly strings added on afterwords. Too cute.

    14. kate says:

      @ macy dawn
      i think she carved the letters backwards onto the stamp

    15. […] D.I.Y. & Tutorials ? my last pin was from I Still Love You (ISLY). The post was titled Uninspired Potato Prints. I repinned it from Pinterest user Amanda […]

    16. Louise says:

      So lovely, what ink would you use if you were going to do it again and do a bugger run? I’m thinking of decorating some paper cups in the same way but I think I’ll need to do a few more than 1.

    17. Melissa says:

      Louise, If you really wanted to get into more printmaking, I would look into letterpress ink. It’s colorfast, has the perfect consistency for nearly all types of printmaking and it’s not terribly expensive. And it’s worlds nicer than the speedball stuff.

      http://www.amazon.com/mn/search/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&field-keywords=letterpress%20ink&linkCode=ur2&sprefix=letterpress%20ink,aps,174&tag=il0c6-20&url=search-alias=arts-crafts

    18. Louise says:

      Thanks for the tips, I’ll check out letterpress ink.

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