Saturday, June 11, 2016

Foam Stamps and No Reply Bloggers



Foam Stamps


One of the quickest way to produce a unique stamp with little effort is to use pre-cut foam shapes. Here's a quick tutorial for a project on a rainy day with kids.

Foam stamps can be purchased plain or with an adhesive under a backing paper. I prefer not to pick at the shape pieces to remove the paper as I tend to nick the edges of the foam. Every little little divot in the surface will be picked up in your print so work carefully. Instead, I buy the foam sheets in large rectangles with adhesive, peel the backing of one, and can then stick the shapes to it. I can reposition the shapes until I find the design I like, too. 

To customize the foam, hole punches transform rectangles to high rises with windows. I stacked my shapes to create a make believe city street with a sun or moon. Who knows? You can also score the shapes with a pointed tool or pencil to embellish it. Remember, if you're creating word stamps, you'll need to make a mirror image so it prints correctly. 




Simple dots large and small might give the impression of bubbles. Vary the amount of ink, and change its direction to add variety. 

You can see how I trimmed back the edges of the background sheet near the shapes. This gives me a clearer picture of the edge of the stamp so I keep from marking over a previous print. Use a brayer to add just a small amount of ink, and trying reprinting several times before re-inking to vary the saturation. I also found it helpful to press very lightly when using this kind of stamp with ink.

Foam Stamps and Printing with Paint

If you wish to use foam stamps with paint, you can paint the stamp with a thin coat of acrylic craft paint first, and allow it to dry. A little bit of paint will give these some 'tooth', and pick up your printing paint. Foam stamps have had the tendency to smear for me if I used them without this prep. 

A Blog Post Worth Reading

A few weeks ago I started answering blog comments on the blog. I have spoken with several other blogger friends, and each of us is experiencing difficulties with No-Reply Bloggers, and others who aren't even aware we cannot respond to them. Sandra from mmm! quilts has written a highly detailed post on what happens to her when trying to reply, but computer upgrades change things often. Even if you have a Blogger account, and I was able to access your email in the past, it is now impossible for me. I want to create fun projects to share with you, and spending so much of that time on the computer eats it up. As much as I believe in being courteous and polite, I hope you'll understand not receiving a personal email, and check back to the blog comments. Thank you for your understanding.

Come on, Doxie girls.
Let's go Dip Dye.
Coming up next on Pink Doxies.


4 comments:

Lisa in Port Hope said...

Well, I still don't know why I can't comment on your blog on my phone, but I have to say that I like the way WordPress lets me set up comments, they get sent to my email, I reply there and it gets copied onto the post.

ljridge4511@gmail (dot) com

Stitchin At Home said...

No reply bloggers I've had my fair share of them. I like to reply to comments on my blog but unfortunately it is getting harder and I'm at the point of were trying to track down email addresses is just to time consuming.

Cut&Alter said...

Love this use of the foam pads - not sure if we have any left in the craft cupboard but I think I will go hunting!

Kate said...

Very fun prints. I like your city scape.