Make Stamps with Foam Sheets

I don’t know exactly how I ended up with so many foam craft sheets, but man, I have a ton of them.

One of these days I’ll surely break down and gift them to the girl’s art teacher, but in the meantime I look for ways that I can use them, as well as crafts the girl can do with them.

This is one that both kids and adults can do or can work together on designing and making stamps using foam sheets.

How to Make Stamps with Foam Sheets

First, if you don’t have foam sheets on hand and you’re wondering what to buy, go for the sticky-backed foam sheets.

These are a little thicker (at least compared to the other foam sheets I have) and are sticky on one side so you can stick something (I use a plastic bottle cap) to the foam to make it easier to handle.

You can do this with regular foam, of course, but I’ve never had much luck gluing caps to the foam. Double-stick tape might work better.

And color doesn’t matter, of course, because we’re using paint or a stamp pad to color.

Draw your design on the sticker paper of the foam or directly onto the foam if you don’t have the sticky stuff.

Another option is to use cookie cutters for your shapes and just press the cutter into the foam until it leaves a mark.

Cut out the shapes.

Peel off the sticker backing and stick on a plastic bottle cap.

Stamping with Foam Stamps

You can use ink or paint with these stamps, though I usually use paint. You can press the stamp into the paint or paint it on with a brush, which gives you slightly more even coverage, particularly in the small parts of a design like the tops of the hearts and the tips of the stars.

Usually the first press is kind of messy because it’s hard to get a thin coat of paint, but after that it gets nicer.

Stamp all you like, wherever you want.

I went back to the page with the bubble wrap heart and added some stamped hearts. See how the pink one on the top left is super smudgy, and the blue one at the top looks like a dot? Those were the first stampings.

I also tried some shapes on card stock that might be used for some other purpose later.

I love how each of these ideas builds on the others and is showing you how I work on an art journal page, too.

Have you ever made stamps like this? I’d love to hear what you did. And if you make some as part of this challenge I’d love to see your work with the hashtag #ourdailycraft.