Blog: ArtFoamies

Stamped Tea Towels Workshop at Kanibal & Co in Jersey City, NJ

Join me in my home neighborhood of Jersey City, at one of my favorite local boutiques: Kanibal & Co., for a workshop. This is my second time teaching at this awesome little shop and last time we had such a great time, I’m very excited to be back!

The workshop will be held on Saturday March 9th, 2019 from 12noon – 2pm at 197 Montgomery Street in Downtown Jersey City. Space is VERY limited on this one so sign up early to reserve your spot!

We’ll be customizing some tea towels with foam stamps – something that is fun to do to spruce up your kitchen or to make as gifts. You can register here.

Here is the official description :)

Foam stamps are a fun and easy way to block print on fabric. Join me as I demonstrate how to work with foam stamps and fabric paints. Working with color and pattern, students will learn how to create custom textiles. Each participant will create two unique tea towels to take home. Refreshments will be served.

Join us! Create! Get crafty! Play with foam stamps! And get inspired to personalize fabric with paint and foam stamps :) Sign up here.

Comments (1)

  • Cindy Gay

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    Natalie-this is such a great idea!

    Reply

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O-Fish-Ally Valentines Day Cards

When I created my new Neato Foam Stamp I thought of it as being a funky mark but I also realized it can be read as a fish if you want to :) So …why not make some Valentines Cards with it :)

Simple – used with acrylic paint and stamped – added a frame and a hook with a pen – there you go :)

And hey – you are all o-fish-ally the best !  I added a bit of black outline with a pen to the Neato stamps and like how the circles can be also read as water bubbles.

For the “you are the only fish in the sea” card I cut out a heart shape out of deli paper and stenciled through the shape, then used the cut out heart as a mask and masked off the painted hear to stamp the background with my new Midcentury Squared Stamp. Last but not least I stamped the Neato stamp on top of the heart and added some doodles with a white Signo pen and a black pen as well.

Do you have any other fun “fishy” sayings for me? LOL Hope you liked those cards- here are the supplies I used besides acrylic paints:


Comments (2)

  • stephanie

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    Your puns are awesome!

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      I found them to be honest- I googled fish and valentine and it was making me laugh hard.

      Reply

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Foam Stamp and Shrink Film Earrings – DIY Play Date

Earlier this week my friend Kim and I got together for a little play date with my new Foam Stamps. This time we made some really nifty shrink film earrings and brooches that I’m excited to wear!

Here are the supplies – we used my new ArtFoamies designs, Moonlight Duo ink pads, shrink film, jewelry adhesive, scissors, a heat tool, and earring and pin backs.

Here Kim stamped on shrink film my Far Out foam stamp in green and just a bit of my Mid Century Squared stamp in yellow.

I stamped Groovy in peach, Gnarly in blue, and a bit of the Mid Century Squared in pink.

It’s a good idea to gently wipe off your stamps with a baby wipe so you don’t contaminate the ink colors.

We stamped lots of different pairs onto the shrink film.

Time to cut out. Here Kim stamped just one end of my Gnarly stamp and cut it into a rectangle.

You can also fussy cut them out. Here is my Far Out stamp.

Time to shrink the shrink film :) Work on a clean craft mat over a surface that can get hot. Gently move the heat tool around, evenly heating the film. I started with my Mid Century Squared stamp in pink.

It will start to buckle and curl and can get pretty gnarled up. Move the heat tool around, hitting every side and surface to shrink it evenly. Be careful! It can get hot!

By moving the heat tool around and flipping over the shrink film and heating it evenly, it will start to calm down and flatten.

A clean palette knife is useful in flipping the piece over, and gently flattening it out.

We tried a more powerful heat tool and actually melted and ruined the piece – it was too hard to heat it gently and evenly and it curled up and melted before we could flatten it out. This was the Jazzed design.

We used the lower power heating tool on the second Jazzed piece – so cute!

Kim did a pair with just a section of my Signals stamp in black ink.

In the end we used the jewelry adhesive and glued them onto the earring post backs and the brooch pin backs.

Here is the Jazzed design in green.

Kim wearing some purple Neato earrings :)

These are part of the Funky stamp – love these in dark blue/green.

Kim’s little black earrings with part of the Signals stamp.

And one of my favorites – part of the Mid Century Squared stamp in yellow.  So in the end we made some pretty cool looking earrings and brooches for us and our friends!

Give it a try! It’s a fun project for a morning or afternoon and you can definitely play around with how you use the patterns.

In addition to my Foam Stamps from my Online Shop, here are some of the supplies that we used:


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Discuss Ideas – Art Journal

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. ” Eleanor Roosevelt

Loved playing with my new ArtFoamies  and creating a pattern using the Far Out, Funky and Gnarly stamps.

I sketched the lady with some acrylic ink on a piece of deli paper and then added it with gel medium to the background.

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


Comments (2)

  • Sue Clarke

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    I love the quote and the art work.
    I have your new ArtFoamies on my wish list Nat!

    Reply

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New ArtFoamies Stamps! Winter 2019 Release

My latest ArtFoamies foam stamp designs are here!!! These are all based on some cool mid century vintage stamp rollers I found in an antique shop in Germany. They are abstract, great for pattern and mark making, and I’m not gonna lie – they’re my new favorite stamps!!!

Here is the bunch :)

These play really nice together: Far Out, Funky, and Gnarly.

Gnarly used in this “You are Groovy” card.

Here is Far Out in some flaming hot red on a card.

Signals is perfect for all over pattern.

Here are Groovy, Jazzed, and Neato all together.

And here is Mid Century Squared repeated for a fun pattern too.

Join me this Friday January 18th at 12noon EST on Facebook for one of my LIVE Kaffeeklatsch chats. I’ll be showing the stamps and chatting with you as we go. It’s a lot of fun and I’d love to see you there.

Comments (2)

  • judy bliss

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    these are fantastic.

    Reply

  • Sue Clarke

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    Far Out…I am in love with all of these!
    On my wish list right now Nat.

    Reply

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JOMO – Art Journal Page

I like JOMO – the opposite of FOMO. I need more joy instead of fear of missing out this year :)

Played a bit with my Van Vorst Foam Stamp Set but also the Van Vorst Stencil to create the background.

Are you content missing out on things or are you always nervous to miss out?

Here are some of the supplies besides Acrylic Paints that I used for this spread:


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Warm Wishes – Josefine Fouarge

  

Warm Wishes from the Creative Squad’s Josefine Fouarge today! She is sharing a beautifully layered tag, inspired by the quiet evenings this time of year and using my Circle Drive, Midtown Set, Weave, and Manhattan foam stamps. The theme is Warm Wishes – For many cultures around the world, December is a holiday season filled with celebrations and good cheer. The Creative Squad is taking this month to send Warm Wishes to all our readers!


Can you believe that the year is nearly over? Where did it go? One good thing about the end of the year though is the holiday season. Time to calm down a little, plus I always enjoy the quiet nights. Those were the inspiration for my December project for the Creative Squad.

I used a chipboard tag as my base and covered it in patterns using several ArtFoamies designs from Nathalie and paints. You can see it here:

Nathalie’s designs are great for layering. Even though they are all different, it doesn’t look “too much” when you layer a few patterns on top of each other.

It’s actually really interesting. You can look through all of them and see the bottom layer shining through.

Warm wishes from the Creative Squad. I hope you can enjoy your holidays in the upcoming weeks and get a great start into the new year.


Thank you Josefine and we wish you a wonderful holiday season and happy new year too :) Here are some of the supplies that Josefine 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“.

Comments (1)

  • Pami

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    Oh, so inspiring! Had to start right away with some tags :-)

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Let it Flow – Art Journal Spread

“Fall in Love with the pieces and the results will come. Let it flow!” – my creative mantra :)

Sketched and painted with some acrylic paints and acrylic inks – I just wanted to see how I liked painting with some thinner paints and acrylic inks- it is a bit challenging and I do like parts of it -the way it makes the colors really pop due to the translucency – but I do miss my texture.

Love how the Clam Hex Stamp provides a nice pattern – All in all I like the flow of this page :)

Here are some of the supplies I used:


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