P Week- Potato Prints

I had made potato prints in the past, but had never done them with Trip, so I figured that P week was a good opportunity to give it a try. I got the potato stamps ready while he was napping so that he could paint when he got up.

Potato stamps are super easy to make. Just take a potato (in this case one that was on its way out and had grown some eyes),

cut it in half (or just cut off one end if the potato is not very big- you want enough for a little one to hold on to easily),

then carve out the image that you want. Now, don't make the mistake that I first made by carving the P the right way. I got this far and realized that I was making a stamp, which meant that I needed to carve the P backwards! Oops! So after cutting off that part,

I carved it properly and made the P backwards.

I cut the other end of the potato in half and made a heart and a star. Fortunately you don't have to worry about carving shapes backwards.

When Trip woke up, the table was all covered in newspaper and the paints were ready. We squirted some blue paint onto a lid from a yogurt container, and he got to work. I made a couple of prints for him and then he wanted to do it himself.

The only problem was that he thought the paint should go on his face.

(Um, what is that on my nose?)

He mostly used the potato as a paintbrush, but that's okay.

Then he used the paintbrush to paint the potato.

Although he didn't make the prints as I had hoped, we still had lots of fun, which is what counts. I bent a pipe cleaner in the shape of a P and used that to make some prints as well. I would make a print of a P and Trip would paint over it with his paintbrush. Together we made some nice artwork to hang on the fridge and had many opportunities to practice the letter P.