If you want to do a truly Irish themed craft for St. Patrick’s day, you can’t get any closer than using a potato to make a shamrock print. This is a super easy craft that is fun to make and looks amazing when done. Everyone will ask you where you got your fun tea towel at.
You don’t just have to make a tea towel like I did, you can use this same technique on shirts, bags, on a piece of paper for a child. It’s that simple.
Well, for some people it is… for me…
You know a Polish girl is trying to tell you how to do an Irish themed craft when:
- She repeatedly calls it a clover on Instagram and everyone yells at her.
- She makes a THREE leaf shamrock.
I was going to redo this craft. I got out a new tea towel but then while waiting for the iron to heat up to iron it, I found out that a three leaf clover shamrock stands for faith, hope, and love.
I put faith, hope and love before luck – so I couldn’t change it.
So here you go, a THREE leaf shamrock craft.
You can add another leaf, or be a rebel… it’s your choice because it’s your craft.
But let’s put those details behind us and get started.
How to Make Potato Prints
I’ve
This is the same exact technique, nothing changes.
But if you missed it the first time, let’s go over it again.
Start by cutting your potato in half using a wide blade knife. The wider the blade the better because then it’s less chances that your potato won’t be cut evenly, leaving weird marks in your stamp.
Once you have your potato cut in half, use a marker to outline the shape you want to cut. Remember this is a potato – don’t plan an intricate design.
Instead of a marker, I used a pencil to outline the potato. If you’re pretty sure of your shape this is a great method because the point in the pencil cuts through the first layer.
To make a shamrock, you draw for hearts that all meet in the middle with a small stem. It’s that easy.
If you’re not sure, draw it out on a piece of paper first and then transfer the design to the potato.
Once you have your design on the potato, use a smaller sharp knive to cut around the design, straight down into the white part of the potato.
Once the design is cut around, go around the outside (brown) edge of the potato and cut away the edges as show in the picture below.
Carefully remove the outside edges of the design that you do not want.
When you’re done it should look something like this:
See how I removed the parts of the potato that I didn’t want, leaving the shamrock shape?
Now it’s time to stamp! On a paper plate, put out a small amount of fabric paint. You can find my favorite kind of fabric paint here.
Rub the stamp into it and then practice stamping on a paper towel a few times before putting it on fabric. If you have a lower area of the potato that is leaving a hole in your stamp design, try putting extra paint on that area of the potato.
I stamped the entire tea towel, getting new paint on the potato about every three prints. I found that holding it for a few seconds securely on the fabric got the best print for me but different fabrics will react differently.
I really like how it turned out. The best news is that since I’m addicted to tea towels and funny tea towel sayings, I have a stack of blank towels that I can use this technique with for different holidays.
Can you imagine a cute easter egg one? Or you can do a sun and waves theme for summer? Simple and cute.
If you wanted to get a little bit more intricate, you could add a vinyl cut saying and stamp around it.
Just ignore the missing leaf. OK?