A Saintly Shamrock Stamp

St. Patrick's Day celebrated the life of the patron saint of Ireland, Patrick. He was attributed with ridding the island of snakes, and with sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the whole country.

Saint Patrick used a common enough item to the Irish to share Biblical principals, and one common enough item was the shamrock. A shamrock has three, heart shaped petals on one stem, and they dot the Irish countryside, giving Ireland those green hills and rolling meadows that the country is famous for.

Now you can celebrate St. Patrick's Day, and the shamrock by making this simple stamp to create cards, and decorate anything your parents allow with just a few tools.

Gather your supplies. You will need a large, firm, baking potato (unbaked), a heart-shaped cookie cutter no wider than the circumference of the potato, a craft knife, and green poster or acrylic paint, a paint brush, and an air tight plastic bag.

The first step involves cutting the potato in half, so you have two equal sides. Kids, please be careful or have your parents do the cutting for you. Knives are sharp!

Then, pressing as hard as you can, push the heart-shaped cookie cutter into the potato. This may require a lot of strength, so get help if you need it!

Now you need to figure out how deep the cookie cutter is into the potato, and cut the sides of the potato away, leaving a solid impression of a heart left. Keep the cookie cutter in the potato when the sides are all cut away.

Dry your potato as well as possible using paper towels, and keep your potato in a very dry place at room temperature for a few days. Putting your stamp into a baggie with one of those silica packets you find in new shoes will help this process. If you only plan on using your potato stamp once or twice, this step is not necessary.

What you will be left with is a shrunk version of your heart. Your potato may not look pretty, but it will work just fine.

Cover your work space with newspaper, and get a paper plate. Add a little bit of green paint to the dish, and press the heart into the paint. Stamp it on to the paper you wish to decorate three times, so the ends are touching. Then using your paint brush, paint the stem of your clover.

The nice thing about making a heart shaped stamp is that it can be used for Valentine's day if it is made in February, and you can use it for several other projects, too. Eventually your potato will get mushy, so when that happens, throw it away and make a new one!