A great craft to add a touch of uniqueness to any holiday project
BY ALDONA BIRD
Newsroom@DominionPost.com
When shopping for vegetables to include in your Thanksgiving meal, order a few extras. When prepping for the big meal, save the ends of veggies you’d normally toss.
Even though the pandemic may change our plans and traditions this year, we can still have beautiful holidays, especially with a little extra crafting.
Using vegetables and vegetable scraps as stamps can add a personal touch to Thanksgiving or be a fun DIY for holiday gifts, or just an activity to do while on your next social video chat.
To make vegetable prints you will need:
- Vegetables (bottoms of celery, Napa cabbage, peppers, okra, apples, onions, broccoli, etc)
- Paint (acrylic, watercolor, etc)
- Canvas, paper, or fabric to paint on
- Paint brushes, water and paint pallet
- Fabric fixative (optional, depending on project)
Consider your vegetables, choose your color palette and put some paint on your palette. If you don’t have a specific paint palette, using a yogurt-type container lid works well, and excess paint can be stored by securing the container onto the top
Cut vegetables in half or pieces to make stamps. Add paint to surface; too much paint will cover the details of the vegetable when stamped. Don’t feel confined to one color per stamp — mix and blend for gradients or contrasting details.
Apply paint to your stamp with a brush (rather than dipping it in the paint) for control over how much paint gets on the surface.
Carefully place painted side of vegetable on your chosen surface — but run some tests on scrap paper first. Experiment with colors and combinations of colors and different vegetables before working on your final product.
If the vegetable shapes themselves don’t appeal to your aesthetic, consider using them to imitate shapes and forms in a landscape or other composition in combination with painting with your brush.
An okra end stamp (rather than sliced the long way) can look like flowers as can sliced small peppers. Napa cabbage and celery ends can resemble stylized roses or other flowers. You can take this craft beyond apple half prints (cute and trendy though they are) if you want.
Using vegetable stamps, you can make Thanksgiving notecards to send to loved ones you can’t be with this week.
Children, staying home from school, may enjoy this craft as well and it can be a fun way to really look at vegetables and document by stamping how they grow, as well as considering the artistic side of this craft.
If you can host some family or friends safely, or if you are setting yourself a beautiful table over which to video chat your loved ones, make a vegetable printed table runner or place mats.
Make veggie printed tea towels or aprons to spruce up your own kitchen or to gift this season (they are lightweight and easy to send in the mail).
This holiday stay safe and craft.
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