Blog: ArtFoamies

NEW ArtFoamies Stamps – City Streets

 

They’re here! My latest foam stamp designs with ArtFoamies are in stock and ready to ship.

Get the City Streets stamps here.  These stamps are all based on manhole covers and grates that I’ve photographed over the years on my Stroll Through the Hood excursions. Many of them are sets of positive and negative designs so you can layer them up in cool ways. All of them are really nifty versatile patterns that could be focal points, backgrounds, you name it. The Midtown Mini Set is 4 stamps that you can arrange any way you like to create a cityscape of your design. Most of the names come from places and streets right around my own Hood.

And… I’ll be introducing the stamps and showing them on my Kaffeeklatsch Facebook Live event this Wednesday, September 20th at 4pm EST. Join me for a chat – it’s been a while!

I’ll also be talking about my inspiring road trip that I took recently in the American Southwest, my upcoming Workshop at Nat’s (Yes, I’m hosting a workshop at my place!), and a couple other things. Drop in, say hello, I’d love to see you there :)

Wednesday, September 20th at 4pm EST.

Nat

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Deli Paper ReDo! Stamped Paper Leaf Mobiles

A couple weeks ago Kim and I had yet another play date and we decided to use up some of left over painted deli paper and make stamped paper leaf mobiles.

Often when creating I clean off left over paint or inked stamps on top of deli paper and those were the perfect pieces to enhance further by stamping with my foam stamps.

we grabbed all my Art Foamies Mini Foam Stamps and the border Foam Stamps.

 

and stamped with them with acrylic paint on top of the deli paper.

Kim had found some really beautiful drift wood branches at the beach and also gathered some thread, matte gel, scissors and tape.

We freehand cut out leaves

We sorted them a bit by color and pattern to see which ones would look best together

And then arranged them loosely to see how they would best look like when hanged.

We added string to the branches making loose knots and then added the leaves with tape to the strings.

Once we were happy with the result we secured the strings with gel medium to be held in place and hung up the mobiles.

Love the little colorful home decor as a transition piece from summer to fall decor

It was a fun and super easy project.

A great way to use some left over deli paper and also to do with kids.

Hope you enjoyed our little play date as much as we did. Here are some of the supplies we used.


Nat

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That’s the Way I like it – Art Journal

“I have no idea what I’m doing and that’s kind of how I love it” – True for a lot of areas in my life ;)

I painted with my new Art Alchemy Acrylic Paint, which Finnabair has sent me to try. I like that they are a bit on the thicker side and the colors are beautiful. I used my Batik Mini foam stamps and love how much texture they created. For the circles I used a round sponge which I had laying around and then stamped inside of it in white with the back end of a brush.

Using a more grey-ish ink I added some texture using my Cardboard rubberstamp set.

I traced some of the patterns with a black pen.

What about you , are you a total planner and know exactly what you are doing or are you also a bit of a “let’s try it” person?

Here are some of the supplies I used for this spread;



Nat

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Stamping Up a Storm – DIY Napkins and Kitchen Towels

By now my friend Kim and I made it a habit to meet every couple weeks for a fun project and I love this so much. This time we decided to make some napkins and kitchen towels.

We got some fabric paint and nice white kitchen towels which can also serve as nice big napkins and started playing.

Using my ArtFoamies Minis on those were the perfect pick. Foam Stamps work so well on fabric!

The size is great and it was a quick and fun way to enhance the fabric.

The fabric paint we used was a little bit too fluid for our taste but it actually worked well – after brayering the paint on top of the stamp we went sometimes with a cotton swap over the stamp to even out some areas or even to take off some paint if it seemed too much. At the end of the day this is a handmade result- so hey- let go of perfectionism :)

Because the paint is a bit thin it tends to seep through the fabric- so putting something for protection underneath the area you stamp when you layer up your fabric is a good idea. We just used paper towels.

We both especially liked the blue.

But also adding more and more white and yellow to the dark green after each row was fun for getting a kind of ombre effect. I love this.

It didn’t take long for the paint to dry and after following the directions on the paint jars to iron the back side of the printed fabric, and then washing them- they are ready to be used.

 

Here are some napkins- I love the set -even though the patterns are different they belong together due to the same color. For the napkins we mostly only printed one row.

For the kitchen towels we added a bit more

Aren’t they fun?

I will definitely make more of those- they make a really good  and personalized gift too. Hope you like Kim and my little project – we already scheduled the next one :)

Here are the supplies I used:



Nat

Comments (6)

  • Ally

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    Pure awesomeness!!!

    Reply

  • Klara

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    I love these so much! Green set and blue set are my favorites! What a fantastic idea!

    Reply

  • Stephanie

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    What a great idea! Thanks Nat

    Reply

  • margaret griffiths

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    OK I love your stamps!!! I guess its time to go buy them…
    Thanks, for the wonderful website and ideas

    Reply

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NEW Mini ArtFoamies !!!

 

I am super excited about my new Mini versions of my ArtFoamies Foam Stamp Designs- let me show them to you

New Mini ArtFoamies by n*Studio from Nathalie Kalbach on Vimeo.

Want to see more videos regarding those foam stamps? Here is a video showing you how I created the last art journal page in the video above,  3Ways to use positive and negative foam stamps, and an Art Tapas Video where I explain how you can clean them.

Hope you like the new Minis :)


Nat

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Powerful Vision – Art Journal Spread

When I close my eyes my vision is even more powerful.

In this art journal spread I played with different collage elements from photos I printed out, images I found in magazines, advertising and paintings by other artists.

I layered stamps and stencils and I love how everything came together.

Here is a little list of some of the supplies I used- some are affiliate links:


Have a wonderful day <3

Nat

Comments (2)

  • Tina Walker

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    I really love this Nat! The colors, the composition, the design! ♥

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No Reason to Avoid Influence – Art Journal Spread

“For my part I have never avoided the influence of others. I would have considered it cowardice and a lack of sincerity toward myself” Henri Matisse

Some stamping with several of my ArtFoamies Stamps including my new super cute Versailles Positive and Negative Mini Stamps. I used only two colors of the stamping and once I filled up both pages, I painted with some yellow acrylic ink over part, which turned green over the blue and stayed yellow in the white off -set stamped areas.

I like how this spread turned out- it was fun. Here are some of the supplies I used – some of the links are affiliate links:


Have a wonderful creative day!

Nat

Comments (2)

  • Julie B

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    Love the mix/matching of the various sizes of Versailles stamp with a little Buenos Aires for interest. Thank you again for the inspiration.

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Rule of Three – #4 – Three Ways to use my Pos+Neg Foam Stamps

Here is another episode of my new series of mini-videos: “Rule of Three”. As we all know all good things come in three and these mini-tutorial-videos will show you all kinds of fun and practical things and techniques coming in three.

Rule of Three – #4 – Three Ways to use my Positive and Negative ArtFoamies Foam Stamps

Rule of Three #4 – 3 Ways to use Positve & Negative Foam Stamps from Nathalie Kalbach on Vimeo.

I hope you find these 3 ways to use my positive and negative foam stamps inspiring . Here is a full list of the supplies I used in my video – some of the links are affiliate links:


I am looking forward to share more Rule of Three videos with you soon! Have a wonderful creative day!

Nat

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DIY – Stamped Easter Eggs

For the upcoming Easter Holiday I decided to dye some eggs. I bought some wooden eggs, blew out some brown eggs and cooked some white eggs to have a variety to play with.

I dyed the cooked white eggs with some natural dyes (Yellow/Orange (Annatto extract), Purple (Radish), Blue (Cabbage) – see picture on top of the collage. For the blown out brown eggs and the wooden eggs I wanted to try the new Tea Stain Dyes by Faber Castell, which are not suitable for food. They are meant to dye fabric and paper but I thought it should work with wood and egg shells too. I loved how the colors came out with these dyes, especially on the wooden eggs, the brown eggs were a bit tricky with the light green, but it was all good. Both dyes resulted in colors that I was super happy with.

I stamped the eggs with a white pigment dye stamp pad – using my inked cling rubber stamps by wrapping those carefully around the egg, and using some of my foam stamps by rolling the egg over the inked stamp.

On the top row you see the eggs stamped with my ArtFoamies foam stamps – I love how they turned out- the impression is bold.

On the bottom I used my Cardboard Cling Rubber Stamp Set. I loved especially how the Tread stamp gave a look of rubber bands but I do love ever single one. The yellow of course was a bit tough with white ink …so I used an archival ink on top which made it a bit smudge. Oh well.

Next I tried my Embroidery Cling Stamp Set – ohhhhh- i so loved the look of this. The different stitches came out really well on the eggs.

On the bottom you see eggs used with the Stroll through the Hood Cling Stamp Sets -see the Hydrant pattern – I was geeking out- LOL- I know it is random but I love it.

Here you have a couple of the eggs as decoration on my table. The cooked eggs are in the fridge waiting to be consumed in the next couple days ;) That was super fun to make, so easy ! I hope you like them and give these a try :) Here is the supply list of what I used besides some brown and white organic eggs:


Nat

Comments (4)

  • stephanie

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    great eggs!

    Reply

  • Joi@RR

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    Heheheh – love your EASTER PARADE of EGGS Nat! They are GORGEOUS. Your stamps are perfect on them. Xj.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      thank you Joi, I am so glad you like them :) Have a wonderful start into the week! <3

      Reply

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