New varieties of potatoes are sprouting on local bookshelves.

Spud buddies "Paisley the Potato" and "Masher the Potato" are just two of a range of friendly characters in a series of new children's books and goods launched by Rathdrum mom and grandmother Rhonda Newton in partnership with her daughter-in-law, Renee Newton of Minot, N.D.

"This all started because I'm a crafter," Newton said Friday, holding up felt ornaments shaped like potatoes.

"For seven years I've been making these felt ornaments. I do craft fairs every year," she said. "I was packing them up last year and I thought, 'This would be a really cute cartoon character.' This is where our story begins."

Rhonda went to Minot to spend time with her daughter-in-law when her Air Force son was deployed to Spain in February. Both actively working on novels, the Newton girls turned their visit into a writing retreat. They collaborated to form a publishing company, R&R Publishing, LLC, and made good progress on their novels. Rhonda also wrote three children's books in that time.

"As soon as I started drafting out a couple of children's books, I quickly discovered that I had tapped into something creative inside my brain that I didn't know existed," Rhonda said.

Rhonda, an Idaho resident since 1990, owns several businesses, is semi-retired from a career in the legal field and is a past president of Cancer and Community Charities, known as the 3Cs. She grew up in a creative family, as her parents owned a crafting store, so it was a natural move for her to design an array of stickers, bookmarks, book bags, T-shirts and other items to bring the characters to life.

"My thought process behind the Masher and the Paisley is I'm going to blow this up because it's Idaho and we have potatoes," Rhonda said.

As a grandmother of two young granddaughters, she is also looking forward to sharing the magic from her imagination with the next generation of her family.

"Having the ability to write a book that I can read to them is off the chart amazing," she said.

The characters include potatoes and garden gnomes with many more to come. They go on adventures, make friends and learn how to do fun activities, such as surfing and fishing.

Rhonda and Renee's creations can be found on etsy.com.rrpublishingllcidaho as well as at local craft fairs, My Favorite Things in Post Falls, the Well-Read Moose in Coeur d'Alene and Vanderford's Books in Sandpoint.

"The past few months have been a lot of hard work and at times have been a bit overwhelming, all in a good way," Rhonda Newton said. "We have a feeling with the holidays approaching, things are about to get pretty busy for us as Idaho — and other states — discovers the newest potato varieties."