Celery Printed Roses

Odd title for a blog post isn't it?  But it's true, these pretty flowers were made using only a stalk of celery!  No paintbrush, no stencils, just veggies!  Want to know how long it took me to actually do this project?  About 15 years!  That's right, I first saw this idea more than a decade ago.  I can't remember if it was in a magazine or craft book or what, but I've had it on my "to-do someday" list for that long.  Finally today, the girls and I picked up three stalks of celery and made some cute celery printed placemats.  {actual project time was less than 30 minutes!}

Check it out...

Here's how we did it...

1.  First, gather your supplies.  You'll need a stalk of celery and some paints.  We did our celery prints on some plain white placemats, but you could also do them on paper, a tote bag, a t-shirt, etc.

2.  Carefully make a straight cut across the bottom of your celery stalk.

It totally looks like a flower, doesn't it?

3.  Next, use your celery stump to start printing some flowers.  We dabbed it onto a paper towel to remove any excess moisture, poured some paint onto a paper plate, did a couple test stamps, then got to work.  

4.  Then, use the ends of some of the celery sticks to add some leaves or stems to your flowers.

I opted for leaves only, the girls made a whole stem with leaves.

5.  Finally, we used some more ends of the celery sticks to add a little bit of a coordinating color to our flowers for some extra dimension.  (It also helped to fill in some blank spots where the print didn't leave as clear of an impression!)

That's it!  So cute aren't they?  I think they really look like roses, or perhaps peonies, but definitely pretty flowers!

My son politely declined to make one himself, but he said he'd use the one I made the next time we set the table with them!

Sharing our pretty celery prints at:

Sugar Bee Crafts
Sun Scholars 
Tatertots and jello