GREEN PEPPER SHAMROCK STAMPS


Surprise! SuperMom is here with yet another green St. Patrick's Day craft. I keep hearing good feedback from the art project ideas so I keep putting them out there, but I hope I'm not boring you. Kinley, I'm pretty sure, is completely over all things Irish. Today, when I squirted fingerpaint on her art paper, she just starting screaming and pointing her finger at me, which I took to mean, "You CANNOT be serious, Mom! Do we not have any paint left other than green?!" And then she just whacked her hand on her paper a few times and tried to climb out of her high chair. Lucky for her, and you, there are only a couple of days and a couple of green projects left. Hang in there.
This project is really simple. I saw it on Pinterest a few weeks ago and had to try it with Baby Kinley. The link from the pin was broken (don't you hate when that happens,) but it seemed simple enough so I just went for it. 

All you need for this project is:
A green pepper (get one with three points on the bottom if you want a shamrock stamp, or four points if you want a four-leaf clover stamp)
Green paint
Paper
Scotch tape 

First things first, cut the pepper. The bottom part of the pepper is going to be your stamp, so you'll wanna leave it tall enough to grab on to. I cut mine down the middle to see what I was working with and decided to trim off a little bit more so the stamp would look more like a four leaf clover.
Squirt some green paint on a plate big enough for your stamp to fit. Now, dip your pepper in and make sure the whole cut edge is coated with green paint. The time has come to get your stamp on! 

Kinley had fun, but she got a little frustrated. It was hard for her slippery little fingers to pick the pepper up off the paper. It didn't help that the paint kind of made the stamp into a suction cup. I've been trying to think of ways to fix this problem and the only thing I've come up with is to make a handle somehow. My idea was to stick one of those Popsicle sticks that come in the DIY Popsicle molds into the bottom of the pepper. I'm not sure if it would slip out? I wish I would've come up with this solution while we were actually doing the craft, but of course it didn't come to me until a few hours later. If you think of a better idea or try the Popsicle stick thing, pass it on, please! :)
I sometimes feel like I am on a timed game show when I am doing art with my girl. Like the minute I get her art shirt on, the timer starts and I'm racing around and showing her what to do and constantly telling her what a good job she is doing and making sure she's not ingesting too much paint. A few moments of fun pass...and then she's completely over it and wants out of her paint shirt right this minute, and I've got approximately 3 seconds to get that green goop off of her fingers before she will make my naptime project wiping it off every surface within her reach. Wipe, wipe, wipe. Hug, congratulate, hug. Annnnnnnnd...TIME'S UP. Wipe sweat off brow and collapse on the couch to catch up on Grey's Anatomy. Well, dream of collapsing anyway. 
Her little smile when she's so proud of her art, that adorable giggle when she tries something new, and all the memories we have already made in the middle of these chaotic, nutso art projects make every pulse pounding second worth it. I'll be honest, I start planning the next one just as soon as one is done. That's the whole beauty of being a stay at home mom--projects and fun and spending every second soaking up my sweet messy baby time.
Here's her finished product:
If your artist is older, you could add stems or smiley faces or glitter...endless possibilities. 
Have fun, get creative and make some messy memories of your own! :) 


**UPDATE** My aunt Becky tried his project with her smallest cutie pants, Weston, and she said the handle method worked great!

My dad also came up with two new ideas for making the pepper easier to hold: cut finger holes out of the pepper -or- just cut the whole bottom off of the stamp to eliminate the suction cup effect.
Thanks, you guys!








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