Giveaway Follow Up and Stamping Our Passports

Wow! What fun that was! If you missed it, I had my first ever giveaway last week, sponsored by k8 tails and it was fun to see how many people were getting involved. There were a few kinks with the commenting, but I worked them out at the very end (I think) and everybody got their comments in. Our lucky winner was comment number 14, "Single New York City Girl" who is looking forward to wearing her k8 tail around NYC (and hopefully starting a new major fashion buzz)! A big thanks to Kate at k8 tails for sponsoring this giveaway!

With the little detour of a giveaway, we are back on track to making our potato stamp and stamping our passports for Ireland. 

Since last time I didn't show exactly *how* I did them, I decided that this time, I would share the steps that I take for potato stamping, in case you decided to try something like this with your littles. 


It's all pretty basic, but the first step is to cut the potato in half. This half of a potato is going to be the stamp.

Then, I drew the design on a piece of paper with marker. I was using the country names at first, but when I got to The Netherlands, I had to switch to the abbreviation and decided that I would continue doing abbreviations for the rest. The abbreviation for Ireland is IE. I also like to put the date, so that when we are old and can't remember all of these details, it will be easier to know when we did this. 

The next thing I did was press the cut side of the potato onto the design.

If you look closely, you can see that the marker transfered slightly from the paper to the potato.

Then, I used the marker and traced the lines on the potato just to make them a bit easier to see for cutting. 

For the carving, I learned last time that the best tool is actually a mini screw driver. If you have kids, then you must have one laying around somewhere, because most of the toys that require batteries have teensy little screws and thus a need for a teensy little screwdriver. 

After making a backward stamp the first time I made potato stamps, I learned that a trial run is always a good idea, because you just never know what's going to happen. 

Since it looked great, we stamped our passports (see how I made the passports here).

Have you tried making a potato stamp? Or do you stick to eating your potatoes? Have you ever tried using some other kind of food for an art medium? (I once painted with mustard, and on another occasion stained plaster with coffee and tea).

Coming Soon: Our Irish feast, "Trip" planning for next year, and some winter holiday festivities! 

IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD: In some parts of Europe Sinterklass is being celebrated today. Similar to Christmas, but different. Click the link and check  it out!