potato painting

Ever since I bought this lovely cookbook:The Silver Spoon for Children: Favorite Italian Recipes

I’ve been meaning to make gnocchi with my guys, but I keep forgetting, so I have a ton of potatoes just lying around.  So the other day, when a package I ordered from Fancy Flours (don’t they have the sweetest wrapping?) came

and reminded me that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, I couldn’t help but drag those potatoes out and get the guys to do something creative.

They were impatient so I just made a few patterns: a big heart, a couple little hearts and a heart outline.  I thought about making cards, but I had a bunch of canvas bags on hand, so thought it might be fun to make festive bags. I gave us all two colors: white and red. (washable acrylic)

When they were finished, I let them bling the bags out with gold and silver sparkles.  (They are definitely my kids-there were sparkles EVERYWHERE!)

But this is such a super easy gift and I had fun making them too.  The potatoes (especially small ones like baby dutch yellow potatoes) are so easy for little hands to hold.  And while I am excited to make the gnocchi one day (and all the neat, well-illustrated kid-friendly Italian recipes in that awesome book) this was a fantastic pre-Valentine’s activity and I’m so glad I had so many potatoes on hand!

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