These are my new favorites for making patterns as they can all fit together in a number of ways and you can use the back side of the stamp for a solid fan shape too. For this release I have 4 fan pairs that have the positive negative versions of the designs, and then a little 4 piece set of Mini Fans.
A Look Back – a blog series to show you some projects and posts that you may have missed – sometimes going WAY back in the archive. I think it will be fun to revisit a few ideas that we haven’t seen for a while. I’m excited to see how a little look back might inspire something new in the future :)
This time I’m looking at foam stamps and some ideas for using them in ways you maybe didn’t think about, even with the help of my March Foam Stamplifier Challenge. Here is A Look Back. Enjoy!
You can use foam stamps in the canvas staining technique – just prepare your canvas staining solution (I used Flow Aid by Liquitex in this 2016 blog post) and use with acrylic inks. The canvas readily absorbs the color in a soft, washy way.
You can also paint directly onto a foam stamp with high flow paints as Cheiron Brandon did in 2016 for my Creative Squad. She spritzed the stamp with water and then got multiple colorful impressions from it on watercolor paper. Each was unique and super fun!
I made a little video here that may inspire you to try some different methods of “inking” your foam stamps. It’s nice to find the way that you are comfortable using foam stamps and in the video I show 3 easy methods.
In another helpful video I made back in 2016 I show how to reverse a foam stamp image using a gelli plate. This is an easy technique that you can use to create mirror images or patterns with a reverse.
If you are looking for a summer project with your foam stamps, here is a flower pot decorating tutorial I made. I used standard clay pots and acrylic paint to give my herb pots that summer a bit more personality.
I hope you enjoyed A Look Back through my archive and maybe you are inspired to try some new things with foam stamps.
Here are some of the supplies that were used in these pieces:
“I need to be alone for certain periods of time or I violate my own rhythm.” Lee Krasner
So true- while I am a very extrovert person – I also love long stretches of alone time :) For my rhythm of the journal page I used the Midcentury Squared foam stamp with UTEE and then added some acrylic ink on top. Then I used ink to draw the lady .
On the left here i used Watercolor and added it to my foam stamp – Love the look. the Signal foam stamp on the right was stamped with acrylic paint.
Here’s a post from my Creative Squad! Today we have Marsha Valk back with us again for another round of fun. Welcome back! Marsha is using my Mid Century Squared, Neato, Funky, Gnarly, Groovy, Jazzed and Far Out foam stamps for this awesome tote… and our theme for April: Feel the Rhythm – We’re thinking about patterns this month and using stamps to create a rhythm of marks. Show us your sense of rhythm!
I remember that when I saw Nat’s new stamp designs for ArtFoamies I immediately thought of stamping them on fabric. So that’s what I did!
When it comes to stamping fabric designs, I always like to think about what I want to do with the fabric. This time I thought it would be cool to try and sew a simple tote bag.
You can find tons and tons of great sewing tutorials on YouTube these days. So what I tend to do is to look for a tutorial that matches my sewing skills, gather all the materials and then go from there.
For the tote bag pattern I chose, I needed two different fabric designs, so I bought two slightly different colours of cotton fabric.
Step 1 Pre-wash and iron the fabric before printing. The paint will grab the cotton fibres a lot better when all the sizing is washed out.
If you already know what you are going to make with the fabric once it’s printed, you can cut it to the sizes needed for your project at this point.
Step 2 Set up your printing station. Protect your work surface if needed. The paint usually seeps through the fabric onto the underlying surface, so make sure you can easily wipe it clean.
Choose the paint colours you want to use. Limit your colour palette to a maximum of two colours plus a neutral.
You can use regular acrylic paint to print on fabric, but if you want it to be washable, you’ll need to use fabric paint or acrylic paint mixed with a fabric medium.
Follow the instructions on the packaging to make sure you are mixing the correct amount of paint/medium for the best result.
I’m using acrylic paint mixed with a fabric medium. You can mix it on an inking palette and use a brayer to apply the paint to your foam stamps or you can create a custom stamp pad using an ArtFoamies StampBuddy.
Step 3 Start stamping!
Step 4 For my second fabric design I also used one of my smaller gel printing plates to print with.
First I handcut three stencils from transparencies slightly larger than the gel printing plate and I placed the stencils on my fabric to help me determine the pattern I wanted to print.
Cover the brayer with paint and then roll the paint out over the gel printing plate.
Take a foam stamp and stamp it into the paint. Here I am using Nat’s Groovy stamp.
Press the gel printing plate paint-side down onto the fabric on top of the stencil. Lift up the gel printing plate.
Step 5 Leave your gel printed fabric to dry entirely before heat setting the paint with an iron. Consult the label of your fabric paint or fabric medium for the exact instructions.
Be sure to protect your ironing board cover with a cloth or parchment paper before ironing printed fabric. This will prevent the paint from accidentally staining the cover.
Step 6 Now your fabric is ready for the sewing project of your choice! This one I printed with Nat’s Mid Century Squared stamp.
Happy foam stamping!
Thank you Marsha for inspiring us to create some of our own printed fabrics for sewing projects! You can find my foam stamps in my online shop if you’d like to create the patterns that Marsha shows. In addition to sewing equipment, here are some of the other supplies that she used:
Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share? I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
Fabulous and one-of-a-kind! I love the stamp patterns and the colors used. I might have to get out my sewing machine and give it a try. It’s been awhile since I’ve sewn anything, but I think I can manage the straight lines of a tote bag. :-)
If you have taken a class with me in the past couple years, I have surely “forced” you to try ArtGrafs ;) No, seriously those little watercolor graphites are one of my favorite things to use with foam stamps.
Simply wet the foam stamp a little bit, rub the water-soluble graphite on top and stamp. You can use different colors and blend them as well. Take note that this doesn’t work with any graphite- it needs to be like this one water-soluble.
The ArtGrafs are so crazily pigmented that you can stamp several times, simply spritz some water in between on the foam stamp and check if you cannot get yet another wonderful image stamped off.
Day 30 – Watercolor
Oh Yes! You heard right – use your foam stamps with watercolor! For this I use a little trick:
I add my watercolor out of the tube on top of a gel plate and then add water and thin it down then press my stamp into the paint and stamp on paper.
The plate acts as a palette and inkpad and helps that the watercolor doesn’t dry too quick. For dry watercolor in pans, simply load your wet brush and watercolor and try to apply directly to your stamp. If that doesn’t work, try to add the paint first to the plate and then stamp into it. Trust me it is fun to try
Day 31- Connect
There are many ways you can “connect” the prompts of the last days- either use several different techniques on one art journal spread, create layers, or like I did create an Art Journal. I bound my own art journal –based on my online workshop BYOAJ – Bind Your Own Art Journal.
For the cover I printed on some fabric and then I chose my favorite Foam Stamplifier pages and made them into signatures for my book. They will provide great starting prompts when I want to art journal and remind me of the different techniques.
Here are the foam stamps I used for those prompts:
It is so much fun to create pattern with Foam Stamps- there are so many ways to use them to do that. Sometimes lining up the same stamp next to each other in different directions creates different patterns. Sometimes combining different foam stamps create a nice pattern cohesive pattern like my new mid century patterned foam stamps.
I also love creating tile patterns with my stamps and just thinking of the ways I can amplify one foam stamp and create different outcomes makes me all giddy.
Day 26 – Mix & Match
Another way to use the foam stamp is to layer different foam stamp patterns on top of each other.
I love to use the same pattern as a big and small pattern to layer on top of each other.
Or as you can see my Creative Squad member Tania created a really cool layered Holiday card by printing the Clam Hex Stamp next to each other and then layering the Circle Drive stamp in the middle – I just love what she did there.
Or sometimes just stamping the positive and negative stamps- like the Santa Fe stamp on top of each other by layering them in opposite directions will create a fun new layered design. Just play with it.
Day 27 – Sculpt
I love using my foam stamps when sculpting little plates or bowls with air-drying paper clay. I rolled out my paper clay as you would roll out dough, put a plate or bowl of my desired size on top and then cut the clay around the edges.
I then pressed my inked up foam stamps into the clay to create texture and pattern with a faint of color. For the bowl shapes, I put the clay disk into the bowl, shaped it to my liking and then let it dry overnight. I love these little pieces; they make great gifts and can be used to hold jewelry or other little tidbits.
Day 28 – Gesso
Gesso is such an awesome medium. One of my favorite techniques with Gesso and foam stamps is to paint a layer with gesso, and then press the stamp into the gesso while the gesso is still wet.
Remove the gesso from the foam stamp after each print. Then let the imprinted surface dry. The magic starts when you add a thin layer of acrylic paint on top of the surface.
The paint gets more resisted on the raised gesso areas and accumulates in the grooves revealing the pattern and texture in a really beautiful way. Sometimes I let the paint dry and even add another different color – again needs to be fairly thinned down! – on top.
Here are the different foam stamps I used for these prompts
How fun is it to mix and match several Art Foamies into a project? For me, it’s a blast! I love to create layers with colors and designs, and I am mixing and matching to my heart’s content as I transform a calendar. I use a large calendar to keep track of all my art deadlines, and I’m going to need a new one soon, so time to get started!
First step is to apply a layer of gesso to the kraft calendar and let it dry completely.
I wanted a colorful background to build my layers onto, and came up with this idea. I took my 6×6 gel plate, and added a layer of paint with the brayer, then “stamped”my plate onto the calendar. I repeated this several times with one color, then added new colors. I also overlapped my blocks of color to make it more interesting.
Now, it’s time to stamp a repeating pattern onto my calendar with the Mid Century Squared ArtFoamie (love this pattern!) and black acrylic. I brayer the paint onto the gel plate, press my stamp into it to get a good solid layer of paint on it, and then line it up and stamp the bold pattern. My gel plate acts like a giant stamp pad, only with paint. Use the heat tool if necessary to speed up the drying time of the layer.
Next layer is white acrylic with the Signals ArtFoamie. I repeat the previous step in order to get another overall pattern that I am mixing and matching with the black.
Every calendar needs a bit of glitz and glamour, right? The Jazzed Art Foamie is perfect with a shimmer of gold. I randomly stamped this image onto the calendar, again using my gel plate like a giant stamp pad with the paint.
I mixed and matched three different patterns onto a very colorful background, and at this point it was looking a bit wild. I decided to tone it down and pull it together by rubbing on some transparent fluid acrylics with my fingers, and using a baby wipe to remove it a bit if I got too heavy fingered. Once my cover was dry, I stamped the months on the pages and started writing in the dates.
Check out the details to see how easy it is to mix and match ArtFoamies to create delicious layers! Each design remains visible, but is linked to the others.
I toyed around with the idea of adding a focal piece to my calendar, but decided I like it just how it is. I now have my own personalized, colorful calendar which will be fun to pull out and use for planning.
Thank you Maura! I just love these colors and how my Mid Century Squared stamp pops when done in black. Awesome! You can find my Foam Stamps in my Online Shop. In addition to white Chalky Gesso, here are some of the supplies that Maura used:
Feel inspired? I hope you join us for the Foam Stamplifier Challenge this month. As you play along, don’t forget to tag me when you share your creations – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
Printing on top of plastic sheets or overhead foils is a fun way to create transparent elements for your work or nice dividers for your art journal but my favorite of all must be using Shrink Plastic. From wine charms, to embellishments to earrings. Using the foam stamps with inkpads of your choice, stamp your desired images.
Then heat the shrink film up as the manufacturer recommends and you will get a tiny version of your stamped image. Too cute! Here is a sample where I used the shrink film to create myself some new fancy earrings.
Day 23 – Scratch!
Another fun way to use Foam Stamps is to stamp onto some Ampersand Clayboard to create some great textured designs.
Stamp on top of the clay board with acrylic paint or spray ink or inks and then start scratching into the design. It is like doodling by scratching- better then coloring books- trust me!
Day 24 – Bits & Pieces
How about using bits and pieces of foam stamped paper to create something new?
You could create a tangram which is a puzzle which consists of 7 flat geographic shapes which put together can create a new shape.
Simply google tangram, print out the template, glue it on some white or black paper, start stamping with your foam stamps and cut it.
And then go and play …
Here are the different foam stamps I used for these prompts
No, no, don’t be scared- this is a friendly Ghost prompt. I love to apply paint on top of a dried paint layer and while the second layer is still wet, I take my slightly wet foam stamp and press it into the paint and lift it.
This will remove the second layer paint partly and create texture making for a subtle and nice imprint and revealing the color underneath. My favorite second color for this is white- it just gives a nice antique plaster effect.
Day 17 – Shape
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I thought this would be a great day to amplifier your stamps using them to stamp out a shape…like a shamrock. Although …I guess I messed it up since a shamrock is a three-leaf clover ….oh well…you can tell I am not Irish- LOL – but hey, I tried.
Anyway you can use any shape of course and you can cut it out of a piece of paper or like I do out of a piece of deli paper. Basically you are creating a stencil.
Then just fill in the opening with either one or more foam stamp patterns, and lift the stencil- the filled in area defining the actual shape.
Day 18 – Mask
Now of course you can also mask an area off and then define that area by stamping over the mask. Here I used one of my beloved Elephant Masks and my Downtown positive and negative Foam stamps.
You can easily cut out your own mask of course. And voila …there you have a it – love the background. So many options with this.
Day 19 – Spray
Another one of my super favorite foam stamplifier techniques is to use dye or ink sprays with my foam stamps.
Spray onto the stamps and print – I love the super vibrant watercolor effect this gives. So easy and yet so effective!
Day 20 – Texture
Another one of my old foam stamplify favorites. Use the spray paint we used yesterday as an embossing agent and create some nice grungy texture.
Spray your foam stamp with dye ink and stamp and while the ink is still wet sprinkle some UTEE or ultra thick embossing powder on top and then heat emboss it.
I love the raised water drop like texture this creates.
Day 21 – Brush
Using a brush to color in certain areas of a foam stamp is also a cool way to amplify the stamps.
When working with acrylic paint you either have to work fairly quick in order to prevent the paints from drying to fast or you can use a little bit of retarder with your paints to extend the drying time a bit.
I hope you enjoyed this round of prompts. Here are the stamps I used for those:
Have you missed the prompt list? Here you go
See you tomorrow for a little Kaffeeklatsch! I’m showing off my new Rubber Stamps and chatting with you on Facebook. See you at 12noon EST :)
Marsha…LOVE love LOVE this bag!!!
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