i’ve been wanting to try out making a potato stamp since i love stamping and i eat potatoes! like i said, we’re throwing ourselves a little summer picnic party for our birthdays this weekend, so a big picnic blanket seemed like the perfect thing to make.

YOU’LL NEED

a big canvas drop cloth from any home improvement store ( mine is 6 x9 and seems huge )
a potato ( and maybe a second in case of mess-up )
a knife
acrylic paint of your choice ( you could mix it up and do different colors obviously but i kept mine simple )
a paint brush

STEP ONE cut your potato in half. careful to do this as straight down as possible. now carve your design. i love a simple triangle pattern and it seemed very easy for me to not fuck up. although i did on the first half of course.

STEP TWO using your paintbrush, put some paint on the stamp and test it on a piece of paper. when i first tried it, the surface didn’t turn out flat enough so i started over after trying to salvage it. the second half of the potato worked better, but i had to do a back to forth motion to get it to print properly. also, i recommend cutting deeper than i did off of the sides. the potato would get clumped up with paint because of the depth, so to make the process easier, just cut it deeper. test it enough to figure out your stamping pattern and how much paint looks good.

STEP THREE find a workspace and start stamping! i used a paper plate and a $1 paintbrush so i could throw them away and be done with it. i convinced my boyfriend the paint wouldn’t seep through onto the hardwood floor. i was wrong, it did. you should probably work on a surface. i sat on the drop cloth and worked my way all the way down, complaining about my back the whole time.

now take that baby out for a picnic!

all together this DIY took me about an hour. it’s certainly not perfect, and of course there’s one triangle that’s upside down. classic me move. but i love it and will use it for all future picnic-ing.

+ ALSO STAY TUNED FOR ANOTHER PICNIC DIY COMING REAL SOON