Last night, in addition to absorbing the news that John and Sherry are taking some time off (the blogosphere - seriously its own little world), Lou and I had some fun upcycling some old clothes.
Easy, Free, DIY Stamps from Foam Stickers
After a bit of a bedroom rut last week, I decided to hand stamp a duvet cover or bedspread, preferably making my own stamp, preferably for free. I of course headed over to Pinterest to see what other crafters are doing, and boy are they doing it. Not the bedspread, which we'll get to later. But in general, stamping is all the rage, y'all. And people do it with the durndest things.
Like foam stickers.
Yeah, these foam stickers. If you're a parent, caregiver or educator, you may share my love/hate relationship with these little buggers. Hours of entertainment, but at a steep foam-stickers-everywhere price.
Anyway, when I say that Lil Blue Boo had used foam stickers to stamp her daughter's shirt, I was intrigued. I happened to have a bag of these, courtesy of my sister (to Lou, obvs), plus some paint, plus some clothes we were already planning to donate or upcycle. So we got to work.
First, we made the stamp. Following Lil Blue Boo's advice, I used three stickers per stamp. I attached them to an actual stamp I already had, thusly:
Make your own super cheap stamp using foam stickers.
I used a small paint brush to ink the stamps, with regular latex and acrylic paint I had lying around.
Lou demonstrates the paint application technique during the practice round. No worries about injuries - she just treats those bandages like tattoos.
Fabric paint would work well, if not better, but we were in the zone and choosing based on color. If you're stamping paper, you could also use ink, of course. In any event, thanks to the most inclusively-curated foam sticker bag in the world, we had lots of foam stickers to choose from. I used my little lady figure to adorn a gray tank (which I also divested of its lace trimming). Then I used a wee stegosaurus to spruce up some cutoffs. It looks almost like an Aztec print, so I figure that's a win-win.
Super easy upcycle with homemade stamps made from kids' foam stickers.
Finally, we updated a plain-Jane dress of Lou's with some kitties:
See the stain in the before pic? Yep, I stamped right over that bad boy. For smoothness, I slid my clothes over a piece of mdf (mine's an empty back from an old picture frame) and then started stamping. You can see it in the before pic of Lou's dress.
I'm telling you, this is one of my favorite projects to date, and it was sort of accidental: it was raining and we wanted a project, and I had everything we needed to do this one. Lou loved the project too -- I hadn't thought about stamps as entertainment, but they are. And this is a cheap cheap way to make fun stamps, which otherwise can actually be quite pricey. For the handle, try a cork, or a wooden or foam kid's play block or Lego (like Lil Blue Boo did). And a roller works to ink the stamp as well, but ours were so tiny a wee brush made more sense. And we did all three in maybe an hour, so it's an instant gratification project, to boot.
So, let me know in the comments if you questions, and of course if you try this yourself. I am on a stamping kick, now I tell you. No surface in my house is safe. Have a great day!