Red Ted Art's Blog

Bringing Colour & Art to Children's Hearts

Kids Get Crafty: (London) City Postcards

Hello! Today we made our own potato print city postcards! We had lots of fun making them (well maybe I did more than Red Ted… mmh…) and found a lovely book to go with them. Potato printing is a fabulous craft for kids – it is easy and quick to do at home – and usually you have all the materials to hand. Kids can practice motor skills whilst exploring colours. Use cookie cutters to help you “cut out” nice shapes!

They were inspired by a number of things:

1) Zoe from Playing By The Book’s great postcard swap

2) The fact we live in London and I wanted our postcards to reflect this (though they look more New York, than London..)

3) Our Ink Stamp Card Guest Post from a few weeks back

4) AND a lovely book

Firstly the Book

Follow the LineFollow The Line, Laura Ljungklist

This is a lovely book that will appeal to all “design geeks”… it is wonderfully illustrated and just that little bit different. It starts off in the morning – following a line around the city, through traffic, the ocean, country side etc until it is time for bed. The line becomes skyscrapers, cars, boats etc. It feels quite interactive, as you can “follow the line” with your finger and as you go through the pages you get to count different things (like fire hydrants or cars with lights on). So lots to look at and explore. We love it.

x

The Craft

We decided to make a city scape out of potato prints to represent London – of course Big Ben, the London Eye, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Gherkin would have been better icons, but I am not that skilled in potato cutting!!!! So skyscrapers it was. Red Ted love the book – the only downside was, he kept asking for “extra details” the book had (e.g. a clock) and our potatoes didn’t have these – if we had more time, I could have cut extra parts, I am sure.. and we could have used our potato blocks as “building blocks” and created all sorts of wonders. But we only have postcards to make… so…

It took him a while to get the hang of “not wiggling” the potato. So we did a “free for all” painting first, with sky and sun and prints (he LOVED this bit: Note to self: Red Ted is getting older and needs to explore more by himself… less mummy meddling). Then we did the postcards.

Interestingly Red Ted is now really into colour theory and mixing colours (esp pink!)

I confess, I did a lot of helping – sorry. But we *needed them* for the great swap. And we did do the “free painting”… uhm, so I feel ok about it. Really, I do.

city Potato Print Potato Printing

As it didn’t look that London like, we added a plane with a London banner. Done.

For more Kid’s Craft ideas, click here for a full list.

If you have been crafty with your kid’s be it at home, in the kitchen or outdoors, I would love for you to link up:

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Filed Under: Card making, Kids Craft 42 Comments

Comments

  1. Beautiful! Really very lovely. So many people have told me I would like this book… our library doesn’t have it, and it hasn’t (yet) reached the top of my wishlist… I hope it won’t be long before you receive your first cards as part of the swap

    Reply

    • We were so into them, that we sent extra cards to friends with children! Hope you get to have a look at the book soon 🙂

      Reply

  2. Maggy these are really lovely. We’ve only done potato printing once. I think I must be a little too unco-ordinated because it took such an effort for me to carve them and then when J was stamping with them you couldn’t even make out what shapes they were! So I am VERY impressed that yours actually looked like buildings 🙂

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  4. OK this is a really ‘bad mother’ thing to admit, but looking at your potatoes I’ve thought of a quicker way round it!! do they or do they not look a bit like Potato Waffles??!! Of course, I never feed my kids such junk, err I’ve seen them on the telly…?

    They look great, I love them. Trying hard to think of some icinic building of my town and struggling!

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  6. those look great! I love the potato stamp idea..and that you made them into buildings {the fingerprint tree is a wonderful addition}. Your cards are fantastic!!!

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  7. Liz – Hehe yes they have a similarity with potato waffles!

    Kate – have you tried using cookie cutters – cut the potato in half. push the cutter in and then use a knife to cut round the cutter. lift the cutter off… and hey presto?

    And thank you for the other lovely comments – Red Ted LOVES doing anything with fingerprints!!

    Reply

  8. How fun! I ahve not done potato prints like this yet! I think the girls would enjoy it – we must try some this summer! Now to think of what design I can make on a potato! 🙂

    Always such fun ideas here!

    Bernadette

    Reply

  9. Hi Maggy – I didn’t have anything from LocalFunforKids to link up. But, this week, I wrote a blog post for a friend’s blog ‘Preschool Buddy’ so I linked that up this week. It’s a really cool sensory box. I hope that’s okay. : ) Thanks, Heather

    Reply

  10. Lovely potato stamping! I like the city scene with the flight and the banner!

    I was thinking of a similar art project but I was thinking of using masking tape.

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  12. That’s fabulous that you made your own postcards. We cheated and sent out regular old printed state cards for Zoe’s swap. I haven’t seen that book, but the author’s newest “Follow the Line to School” is on our “want to read” list this year.

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  13. Janelle – that isn’t cheating!! “normal cards” or postcards are just as fab… just I have a craft blog.. so feel I should do something crafty (plus we had fun!!!) x

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  15. Maggy, I really love your potato print idea and the buildings turned out so well. I want to try it too. Thanks for sharing this wonderful activity for kids.

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  23. Oooh lovely to have you visit “just in time” for the linky, Sara 😉 and thank you for your fab party each week too!

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  24. I can remember doing these when I was little but they never looked like these fab ones! Great for all ages. I can imagine some really artistic ideas from the older pupils. Thanks Maggy!

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  25. Hi !

    We have well received your beautiful postcard and we have enjoyed it.

    Rose loves to send and receive letters and postcards, so if you give me your address, we could send you a thank you letter.

    Lots of love from France !
    Adeline and Rose

    Reply

  31. Aaaah thank you all for your kind comments.. and hehehe they are a “limited edition” only! 😉

    Reply

  33. Great idea…although I wonder if I could cut out building shapes so neatly! Any tips or tricks?

    Secondly, have you tried painting with beetroot? This same idea could be extended to moist beetroots and you don’t even need paint! Naturally pink buildings perfect for Valentine’s Day!!! 😀

    Reply

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