Have you ever heard of Lotta Jansdotter? Her fabrics and paper goods are so pretty!! A while back, I saw where she used potatoes as stamps to print on fabric and finally decided to give it a try. I can’t say I was super successful, but it was really fun to try! Here’s what Lotta did.
Here’s what I did.
To prepare: Place a trash bag or newspaper under your fabric because the paint will more than likely seep through. Pick out the paint colors you want to use and make sure to use fabric paint instead of acrylic.
Choose your weapons! Or in this case, your potatoes.
The only potatoes I had in the house were red potatoes, but I don’t think it matters what kind you use. Just think about the shape you want to cut out and make sure you choose a potato that’s large enough.
For me, cutting out the shape on the potato was really awkward, since I’ve never used chiseling tools. It was actually pretty amusing… Here’s what I ended up with for the leaves. (Don’t laugh!)
After cutting out my “design,” I mixed up the colors I wanted to use for the leaves and brushed them on with a paintbrush. You could use a roller or a sponge depending on the size of your stamp. After applying the paint to the potato, I stamped the fabric wherever I wanted my design.
I cut out my next design on the other half of the potato and applied paint as before. Here’s what I ended up with! The colors look tons brighter on here than they do in real life… It was too stormy to take pictures outside today!
After you finish stamping your fabric. Don’t forget to heat set the paint to the fabric. There are different ways to do this, but the easiest is to use an iron. I put a piece of printer paper between the iron and my fabric. NOTE: Let the paint dry completely before heat setting with an iron!
Check back tomorrow to see what I did with my newly printed fabric!!!