Potato prints

After finding some very old potatoes buried in my vegetable rack I decided today was a good day for trying potato print painting! 

After cutting off the shoots, the potatoes are halved, and then handles cut into the top of each one.

Next the tricky bit - cutting the bottoms into shapes. Despite starting with 8 stamps I was only able to make 4 prints! The biggest tip I can give is remember anything you cut will print with a mirror image - my Z looks great in potato, but was backwards once printed!

I wanted to go for two different types of picture, so we did:

*Paint on white paper  

*PVA glue on black paper 

While the glue was still wet we sprinkled white glitter all over, hoping for a zebra effect.

 It was lots of fun but with the backwards Z, it came out more as bright splodges

The painting was great fun and kept her occupied a good 20 minutes.

The more she stamped, the more the paint mixed and gave some really funky prints 

There was more dragging than printing but it was a good fun session with some pretty prints 

Remembrance Sunday

At 17 months, The Zebra is much too young to understand why Rememberance Day is so important (She's also  young to be trusted not to eat the poppy on my jumper). 

I still wanted to acknowledge the day, so we had a theme around the Poppy. A symbol of hope and a fresh start, as well as all that has been lost. 

The Zebra loves baking and we try and make something every week. I like recipes that aren't to hard and allow her to do most the cooking. Obviously some bits, like making the leaves, have to be done by me! 

Trying to be a bit adventurous and tasty, we went for a lemon and poppyseed recipe. Zebra enjoyed squeezing the lemons but soon took to eating them... 

We're not sure what went wrong, but this biscuit recipe was much too wet to shape - even after adding in lots more flour. Luckily we had cupcake cases in the cupboard!

After all her hard work of stirring and pouring and filling cases, it's time to taste the mixture while waiting for the cakes to bake

Using the fantastic Wilton Gel food colouring, Zebra was able to paint the cakes poppy red. I love how even a teeny amount of gel gives such a vibrant colour. Once dried, I was able to add the black centres to the poppy.

As the recipe was originally biscuit not cake, the final bite was a bit heavy an stuck to the cases, however the lemon flavour was delicious and has certainly inspired me to cook with citrus more often. 

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