Gorgeous DIY Art For Your Living Room Just Calls For A Potato And An Old Canvas

Take a look around. Are you suffering from too much bare wall space? Sure, there are some places where you can buy affordable art for your home, but a blank wall can also be a fun DIY opportunity. Sometimes making your own wall art can be one of the most economical ways to decorate your home. But you don't have to be a bonafide artist to make beautiful art. In fact, you can tap into your inner child and try out an art project that you probably haven't tried since grade school: potato stamp art. That's what Abi Hugo, aka @thewhitewhistle on Instagram did when she created some adorable DIY wall art using potatoes and an old canvas.

Potato stamp art is simply the art of carving your own stamp into a raw potato and stamping the image onto paper, canvas, cloth, or any surface you would like to decorate. But one other thing that sets Hugo's creation apart is that she bought old art at a thrift store instead of finding a new canvas. Considering that art at thrift stores can be only a few dollars and large canvases can easily cost way more than that, it makes perfect sense to creatively repurpose an old item like a painting — especially if the image is dingy or just not particularly appealing to you. Other than that, Hugo used white and black paint to create her simple, yet impactful wall art.

Hugo's design involved painting her thrift store painting with a coat of white paint. Then, she carved a simple and minimal rectangular shape into her potato using a sharp knife and pressed it to the canvas several times to make the pattern. When you carve your stamp, make sure to only cut it on one side and leave part of the spud with the skin on to act as a grip while you're painting. If you're a little more adventurous, you can also carve a simple design into your potato and use different colors to block print onto the canvas. Big, chunky, abstract shapes in different colors and patterns are a great way to tie a room together and embrace a modern, boho aesthetic.

But raw potatoes are hard enough for anyone to carve a finer design into without worrying about them getting soggy in the paint. You can even carve more advanced shapes like flowers, fall leaves, fruit, or even letters to build a wholly unique design. TikToker @nikkalcaraz used cookie cutters to easily give their potato stamps a defined shape for their spooky Halloween dishcloths as well. Potato stamping is also a great way to involve the kids in the design of your home (as long as an adult is carving the design).