Creative Compulsive: Super Duper DYI Holiday Gift Ideas....Idea #6

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Super Duper DYI Holiday Gift Ideas....Idea #6

Potato Print Snowmen

These little snow people are so much fun to make! The Snow Family shown above was printed on black velveteen by my daughter. These fun snow creatures could be printed on napkins, towels, tee-shirts, pillows, cards, wrapping paper...or any number of things.

Here is what you need:

a few different sizes of potatoes

fabric paint, or acrylic paint and fabric medium

toothpicks

something to print on

beads, buttons, bells, or other embellishments

Here is how these snow people were made....

Select a few different sizes of potatoes. I used some potatoes that had sprouted and were a little on the shriveled side...so I didn't feel like I was wasting potatoes. Then slice the potatoes in half.

Pick a paint to use...if you are printing on fabric and the finished piece will be washed it is important to use either a fabric paint, or acrylic paint with a fabric/textile medium mixed in. I used a white acrylic paint and a little glitter paint, with fabric medium mixed in...it's what I had on hand.

Pour a generous amount of paint onto a flat surface, I used a plastic plate. Stick toothpicks into the potatoes, as shown. The tooth picks are very handy when lifting the potato halves out of the paint and off of your print.

Place the potato cut side down in the paint. Thoroughly coat the potato in paint. I recommend doing a test run on a scrap piece of fabric, to get a feel for how much paint you need on the potato.

Place the potato, paint side down on your fabric. I recommend starting with the base of the snow person and working up. You can use different potato sizes to create the base, body, and head of the snow person. Make sure to apply ample pressure to the potato before lifting the potato.

After your snow people are complete, sit and patiently watch the paint dry.

After the paint is completely dry...we gave it a couple of days...add any embellishments you wish. We used black beads for eyes and mouths, and wooden beads for noses. Buttons were added down the front of the snow people.

Here is how I added the hats and scarves....

Old, holey shirts and sweaters can be given new lives as hats and scarves for the snow people. For the scarf cut long strips of knit fabric. I used my once favorite striped knit shirt. Sew the strips of fabric to the snow person where the pins are in the picture. Once the strips are sewn on, tie the "scarf" around the neck of the snow person. After the scarf was tied, I tacked down the scarf so it would lay correctly.

Cut a piece of fabric into a rectangle that is the correct width for the snow person's head, and the desired height of the hat. For the hats on these snow people I used a knit shirt and a sweater. I utilized the hems on the shirts and sweaters I cut up for the bottom hem of the hat.

Pin the rectangle into the shape you would like the finished hat to be.

Using a zig-zag stitch sew the hat to your snow person. After the hat was sewn on I ran a running stitch across the top of the hat and then gathered up the top of the hat.