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Potatoes aren’t just for dinner anymore. If you can draw a simple design and carve it out of the flat side of a split raw potato, you can make holiday and everyday gift wrap for a fraction of the cost of store-purchased paper. And with a little practice, you can add a touch of your personal flair which will have recipients oohing and aahing before they even open the present.
Making your own gift wrap this way couldn’t be easier. Here’s what you need:
One or two large white potatoes
Toothpicks
Sharp paring knife
Tracing paper (optional--see below)
Paper towels
Inked stamp pad(s) in whatever color you desire
A roll of brown or white craft paper (the kind you get for wrapping packages to send through the mail)
Scissors
And here’s how you do it:
Split a potato in half, lengthwise. Using a toothpick, etch a simple design or shape onto the flat side of the potato. If you don’t feel artistic or you’ve found a printed design elsewhere which you’d like to use, take a piece of tracing paper and trace the design onto it. (Children’s coloring books are a good source for bold, simple shapes and pictures that you may desire to trace.)
Holding the tracing paper with your design on it flat against the potato, poke holes through the paper and onto the potato at 1/4-inch intervals along the line of your design. Using these holes or your etched design as a guide, cut away the potato on the outside of the design to a depth of about 1/4”. Your design will now be raised and ready for printing. Place your potato onto the paper towel, design side down, for several seconds until the toweling absorbs any moisture from the surface of the potato.
Meanwhile, cut a piece of craft paper the size you need it for wrapping, and begin to print your designs onto it by dabbing the potato like a rubber stamp onto the ink pad and pressing it onto craft paper. Let your new gift wrap dry completely before using it.
By using different potato stamps and a variety of colored inks, there is no end to the assortment of bright, pretty gift wraps you can make--and all for the price of a roll of craft paper, a stamp pad, and a couple of potatoes.
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