Crush & Craft Pretend Potatoes

Our pretend potatoes for the market stall.

       Any child can craft pretend potatoes with very little effort! After your small one has mastered this easy craft, challenge him or her to sculpt something a bit more difficult. 

       Place fruits and veggies in on a table and have the him touch and explore the organic shapes and textures. Next ask him shape the aluminum foil into more advanced shapes such as carrots or turnips or maybe even a pumpkin. 

       Before you know it, you'll have plenty of veggies for an entire pretend veggie stand to play with!

Supply List:

• aluminum foil
• masking tape
• brown paper bags
• white school glue
• Mod Podge optional
• stapler
• recycled netting from potato bag

Step-by-Step Directions:

1. Tear off large 12"x12" squares of aluminum foil.
2. Shape the foil into silver potatoes, you won't need to crush these down so much!
3. Leave the bumpy parts of the potatoes alone, when these are covered with brown paper, they will look more realistic.
4. Cover these shapes with masking tape.
5. Now cover the shapes with white school glue and shredded, brown grocery bags.
6. Let the pretend potatoes dry over night.
7. Save the netted bag that comes with your real potatoes at the grocery bag.
8. Fold, mask and staple some of the printed grocery bags to seal the pretend bag of potatoes inside of their very own netting. (photos of this process below)

Left, Shape foil into potatoes shapes. Middle, cover these with masking tape. Right,
Now cover the shapes with white school glue and shredded, brown grocery bags.

Cut, fold, tape, staple and trim the paper ends of your potato prop.

Cut the top handle of a brown grocery bag off, tape and staple the top end of the potato net into it as shown above.

Make More Pretend Foods:

• DIY American Girl doll popcorn
• DIY pretend/play toy repurposed canned food for child grocery store
• Sculpt pretend food from salt dough