In our home, the kids love to make their own greeting cards to give out on birthdays and holidays. Valentine’s Day is of course no exception, and this year we created cute and classy heart cards using homemade stamps cut out from vegetables.

Yes that’s right: vegetables. A russet potato, in fact, although you can use other dense and smooth-fleshed veggies like turnips or large carrots. If you can cut a design into it, you can use it!

This card project is really easy and fun, and the kids think it’s neat that they’re using something they usually eat for dinner to create a craft.

For this project, we gathered up:

• 2 or 3 potatoes
• Assorted small heart-shaped cookie cutters
• A sharp paring knife
• White and colored paper
• Paint in assorted colors
• White glue
• Foam craft brushes
• Glitter

To create your potato stamp, cut a potato in half cross-wise, so you have two halves, each with a round end. Push a heart-shaped cookie cutter into the flat round surface of the potato half. Make sure it goes in at least half way so you can get a good heart shape that stands out.

Leave the cookie cutter in place, and, with the paring knife, cut away the potato around the outside of the heart. Leaving the cookie cutter there will assure that you don’t cut through your heart shape. When you’re done, you’ll have a heart standing out from the potato, as in the accompanying photo. Needless to say, these steps should be done by grownups.

Now, you can either cut the heart stamp off the potato (which makes it easier for little fingers to grip) or hold on to the potato half and use the whole thing as the stamp.

Dip a brush into the paint of your choice and lightly brush paint onto the heart shape, then press it onto the paper to make colorful hearts. Make sure you give it a little pressure to thoroughly apply the paint. Alternatively, you can brush the stamp with some white glue, stamp the paper, and then sprinkle with glitter for a beautiful glittery heart.

Let the kids be creative and use their imaginations to create their own unique cards. It may take a little practice to get the technique down, but once you figure it out it’s fun and the cards are really beautiful.