leopard lunch bag luminaries

As promised, I set off on a potato-stamping spree. I made for the kitchen in search of some less-likely candidates to pre-exist in leopard print. The lunch paper bag beckoned!

I’ve been wanting to fashion some type of luminary craft over here, and my freshly carved leopard potato stamps were leaping to be used.

All you’ll need are said leopard potato stamps, brown paper lunch bags, scissors (if you want to have luminaries of varying heights, as I’ve created), dark brown paint, and black paint.  If you are just tuning in, I carved leopard prints out of russet potatoes yesterday, and you can click here to see how I made them.

I think these leopard lunch bag luminaries may be a brilliant choice to illuminate a chic outdoor party or even a bridal shower for the trendy bride (maybe on the rooftop?)!

*Now, lunch bag luminaries have made themselves present over the past decade, and I haven’t unearthed horror tales of fire mishaps using these things.  In fact, I have been to a successful party where at least 30 paper bag luminaries were lit, in the backyard of course!  The bags were filled with an inch of sand which acted both as niche for the tea light (in a tea light holder) and as a fire retardant (in case the luminary is accidentally budged.  I wouldn’t suggest using these indoors.*

leopard potato prints

You know, potatoes are getting sleepy-eyed, bored by their star-stamping existence.  I empathize with the potato’s woes.  There’s much more to potato prints than that.  And so, right here, right now, I’d like to give the plain potato a chance to be in vogue, turn heads, and catch(more) eyes.

When leopard print made its comeback on the runways three years ago, I really didn’t anticipate it would hit the shelves and racks of mainstream shops as pervasively as it has.  To my shock, leopard is massive these days (I thought the big trend would be velvet, but I’ll delve into that another time).  You can find the print on nearly anything that has a surface.

Here’s how you can convert every known object into a lovely leopard.  Take some small, skinny potatoes (I used russets, which were conveniently growing sprouts in my cupboards, yearning to be used as stamps), and cut them into blobs and blotches that look like the above.

A great tip when carving the center: use your knife to mince the center and a butter spreader knife to scoop it out.  The butter spreader knife has a great edge for this purpose: not too dull that it can’t scoop and not too sharp that it will accidentally destroy the areas that you need.

You’re ready for stamping!  When stamping, I first used my large blob stamp, randomly placing it on the page, using brown paint.  Then I used my small blob to do the same thing.  Then I went over the large blobs with my large blotch stamp, using black paint.  I finished it off with my small blotch stamp.  And it’s done!

Now, excuse me while I go on a stamping-spree!!!  Over the next few days, I’ll post found household items roaring for a leopard identity.