Potato-Stamped Cards

With a few good-size potatoes and assorted miniature cookie cutters, you and your kids can make personalized cards for any occasion.

With a few good-size potatoes and assorted miniature cookie cutters, you and your kids can make personalized wrapping paper, cards, T-shirts, place mats, and napkins. Choose large potatoes that, when halved widthwise, have a surface wide enough to accommodate a cookie cutter. Place the cookie cutter on a table, cutting side up. Center the potato over the cutter and tap, pressing the cutter at least 1/2 inch into the potato. Using a sharp kitchen knife, cut the excess potato flesh away from the cookie cutter, making slices perpendicular to the cutter; this is a job only for adults. Once the excess potato is removed, pull out the cookie cutter.

To form the center of a flower or another design, hollow out with a melon baller. Potatoes bleed, so wipe each surface dry with a towel before inking and stamping. Make sure to use the proper ink; if you're working on paper, both pigment- and dye-based inks will work, while fabric requires dye-based ink. For paper designs, place a piece of felt beneath the piece of paper to cushion the surface; this will result in a crisp, even print.

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Peekaboo Gift Card

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Stamped Wrapping Paper

It's easy to create elaborate designs on wrapping paper using a rubber stamp and an ink pad.

Enclose gifts for your wedding party, or favors for your guests, in handmade wrapping paper covered in impressions made with a square rubber stamp.

But don't save this project for the last minute, when wedding preparations will be filling your every spare moment; paper can be prepared in advance.

For a uniform pattern, stamp a large sheet of paper repeatedly with the same stamp, leaving a small space between each impression.

Or stamp just the center of a piece of wrapping paper. If your box and stamp are the same size, you can just stamp the top. If the box is larger than the stamp, the pattern can trail down the sides.

A stamp rolling pin also makes an attractive pattern. We applied several different colors to a sheet of white paper to create a muted design. Store stamped pages flat.

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Rosy Stationery

Leafy vegetables make great-tasting salads -- and sumptuous floral-shaped stamps, too.

Here, the end of a head of Treviso radicchio yields a roselike print.

Cut off stem end with a sharp knife, and stand stem on a paper towel, cut-side down, for 5 minutes to dry. Press cut side onto a large stamp pad, then onto cards, stationery, and more, blotting on paper towel between presses.

Vary stamp shapes with other vegetables, such as romaine lettuce stems or even brussels sprouts cut in half.

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Potato Prints

Potatoes are wonderful mashed, baked, scalloped, or fried, but they have a less conventional use, too: as decorative stamps for personalized gift cards and tags.

The best potato prints have a painterly quality reminiscent of impressionist art. To make one, cut a potato (any variety will do) in half, and draw a shape onto the flesh with a pencil.

Then, using a utility knife or a jackknife with a thin blade, carve around the outline of the pencil design, and cut away the background to a depth of 1/4 inch.

Mix gouache paints (available in tubes at art-supply stores) with a little water, then apply the paint directly onto the design with a brush; or dip the potato into a dish of paint as though using a stamp pad.

Press the potato onto blank cards, reapplying paint when the prints become faint. Each print will look unique and slightly irregular -- a work of art in itself.

To make a tag, punch a small hole in the corner of the card with a needle or an awl, and thread a piece of string or ribbon through.

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Crepe-Paper Spring Birds, Nest & Eggs

Quince branches set the stage for a scene adopted from the newly invigorated outdoors: birds perched beside nests. This flock watches over quail eggs that have been dyed different colors.
Some of the materials can be found at crafts stores and florist shops; others might come from your yard.

1. Make head and body: Use a glue gun to affix a small polystyrene ball to the rounded end of a larger polystyrene egg (for each bird, vary placement slightly to create different body postures); let dry.




2. Cut a 7-inch square of colored crepe paper. Lay the body near the bottom edge. Beginning at the breast, wrap the body, stretching the paper to fit the contours as you go. Brush with tacky glue.

3. Taper back end to create tail. Twist front end to create a beak; brush with glue. Trim with scissors while paper is wet; let dry. Wrap beak in brown floral tape; trim. For eyes, press in map tacks.

4. Make wings: Tear strips of crepe paper in desired hues. Overlap strips to create a color gradient, and glue. Cut out 2 rectangles; glue to each side of the bird. Taper ends to form wing shapes.

5. For the breast, cut a paper oval in a contrasting color, and glue
 
Coconut-Fiber or Grapevine Nest
 
Sources: Loose grapevine, from B&J Florist Supply, 212-564-6086
 

This nest is a cluster of grapevines, shaped by hand and then set onto a quince branch. The eggs are naturally speckled but have been dyed shades of green and blue.

1. Gather coconut fibers or grapevines to form a ponytail; secure 1 end with 24-gauge brown wire.

2. Curl secured end to form a coiled base; continue to curl, adding new bundles and wiring every few inches until nest is formed. (Ours are 2 to 4 inches across.) Secure end with more wire. Adjust by hand to create a cup for eggs.

Dyed and Speckled Eggs

1. Stick flathead pins into a foam board to create a drying rack. In a heatproof jar, mix 1 tablespoon vinegar, about 5 drops of food coloring, and 1 cup hot water. Place eggs (they can be hard cooked or blown out) in dye for 1 to 5 minutes, depending on desired color intensity. Transfer eggs with tongs to rack; let dry about 30 minutes.
 
 

2. Put a piece of felt into a cardboard box. Dip a stiff-bristle paintbrush in watered-down acrylic paint; spatter over felt. To transfer, gently press egg against paint; let dry. Repeat to add more speckles.
 
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