Potato Printed Picture Frames

Today I have spent the day with my not so little, little brother celebrating his 16th birthday. He, like me, is also very creative studying fashion textiles at college. He has a flare for creativity and at the moment he is very much in to his Bohemian decor with indian tapestry hanging in his room along with many Moroccan ornaments and decorations. I knew straight away that for his birthday I needed to make a special addition for him to display in his bedroom in true That’s so Gemma style. For a while now I have been longing to attempt potato printing and I knew this was the perfect occasion.

This craft cost me no more than £6.00 along with a few hours of my happy crafting time. See how effective these can be at such little cost?!

All you need for this make is:

• Wooden frames (or any frame of your choice I guess!)
• Paint
• White card
• Potatoes
• Craft knife/small kitchen knife

I bought the frames and the white card from Wilko‘s which were an absolute bargain! The wooden frames were just £1.00 each as well as a pack of white card containing 15 sheets. In total I spent £4.00 in Wilko‘s then an extra £1.10 on potatoes from Tesco‘s.

I began by painting the wooden frames. To suite the theme I went for black frames as it really draws attention to the coloured prints inside.

I haven’t actually ever tried potato printing before. Well, maybe I have but definitely not any time recently or long enough for my recollection. I was probably like 6 or something…

Ensure you by big potatoes, jumbo potatoes which make the perfect jacket potatoes kind of size, and begin by slicing your potato down the middle where the largest diameter is.

Draw a template of your chosen to shape to draw around – you don’t want to get it wrong!

Once the template has been outlined, use a small knife or craft knife to scalpel away the excess potato.

Try a few practice attempts of printing your shape to make sure it works well and to get a feel of how much pressure you need to apply on the print.

Then start printing away!

Use different colours and shapes to create different patterns. Three cut out lines worked extremely well for creating a pattern when printed in alternate angles.

Go wild, be creative and take a journey back to your potato printing youth!

Also, don’t be annoyed if you bodge up a bit… it will happen!

Finally, leave your prints to dry then place them in your painted frames.

They work so well for jazzing up a plain interior space or decorating an area around a coffee table or shelf unit. Try positioning them in different angles and clustering them to get the full effect of the set.

You could also try resting them up against a wall on a sideboard if you don’t want to create any holes in the wall – or buy some velcro strips for easy removal!