Fruit and Vegetable printing

Using carrot, beans and garlic

Oh the old ones are the best! This craft is still as much fun now as it was when I first did it when I was little.

You will need

• Plates for the paint
• Paint in various colours
• Vegetables/Fruit cut to give a flat edge
• Lots of paper
• Aprons to save clothes
• Paint brushes – optional

Method

Simply put some paint on each plate and spread it around so that when the children dip the veggies in they don’t end up with huge amounts of paint which then splodges over the paper.

Dip the fruit/veg into the paint and then stamp it on the paper. Older children can make pictures and younger ones can just enjoy the stamping process.

Tips/notes/other ideas

Try experimenting with some fruit and vegetables, the classic ones are apples, cauliflower, mushrooms, carrots and potatoes – which can also be cut using playdough cutters to make other shapes. Just cut the potato in half, push the playdough cutter into the cut side and remove the rest of the flesh leaving a shape to stamp with.

Capsicum is also another good and interesting shape to use, and I have heard that oranges work, but I always thought that they would make the paint to runny with juice. I found that garlic worked quite well, although smelly!

Using a carrot and a garlic bulb to make a flower

Apples

You could stamp onto paper and once dry laminate it for a place mat, or onto cloth for a napkin, or apron, t-shirt …. the list goes on!

Some of the stamps become slippery as they are used, so for little fingers you could push a paddle pop stick into the top to help