Throwback Thursday!

It's Thursday... time for a little Throwback! Every Thursday we will be sharing a wonderful project from a past issue of Craft Stamper Magazine.... a full step by step tutorial for you to feast your eyes upon! As a new project for our newer readers, or a reminder for those who have been with us a while... it's sure to inspire!

This week, we have the talented Clare Buswell sharing a project first published in December 2014. A fab tutorial on creating your own stamps... a brilliant art project you could get the children involved in, and of course the stamps you create don't have to be festive! We love the card Clare created:

Clare says: 

I really love how simple and affordable these stamps are to make. I had lots of fun experimenting with different designs. It’s very easy to cut the craft foam and the stamps are much easier to use when mounted onto foam core. Once you’ve made these stamps, children would love using these to make their own Christmas projects too!

Cutting shapes from craft foam is a fun way to create bold and simple stamps. Craft foam is readily available from most art and supply shops and is very affordable. I really like the technique because it’s a quick way to create your very own custom stamps.

Once you’ve decided what design you’d like to turn into a stamp, it’s very easy to transfer it onto the craft foam using tracing paper and a bone folder. The craft foam is very easy to cut with a sharp craft knife or scalpel on a cutting mat. The craft foam stamps well with a variety of inks but I did find pigment ink gave the best results.

The sheets are usually quite thin so it’s best to mount them onto something rigid. I used some lightweight foam core, available from most art supply shops; it makes the stamps much easier to handle and adds some extra cushioning when stamping. If you don’t have any foam core you could also try using some corrugated cardboard!

Materials

Stamps Clare used...

Waltzingmouse Stamps: Seasonal Remedies

Other materials...

StazOn Ink: Jet Black

Memento Luxe Inks: Pear Tart; Love Letter

Craft foam sheet

Foam core

Baker’s twine

Card: white; green

Craft knife

Hole punch

Tracing paper

Bone folder

Foam pads

Silicone glue

Step By Step Instructions:

1 Draw your design onto some tracing paper with a pencil. It’s best to keep the shapes fairly simple until you become more experienced with cutting the craft foam.

2 Using a bone folder, transfer the design from the tracing paper onto the craft foam. Rub firmly along the lines using the bone folder. The lines should transfer quite clearly.

3 Using a craft knife or scalpel cut out any details from the centre of your stamps first. Then cut along the outlines to cut out the rest of the shape.

4 Small circles can be difficult to cut out perfectly using a craft knife so I cut out the berry stamps using a hole punch.

5 Glue the craft foam shapes onto small rectangles of foam core. Once dry cut away any excess foam core around the edges of the stamp, as shown.

6 Stamp your holly stamp in a repeat pattern to create the background paper for your card.

To finish the project:

Once I had stamped the background paper, I stamped an extra holly leaves image and fussy-cut it out. I covered my card base with some green card and added some baker’s twine. I layered the stamped background onto my card base using foam pads for some extra dimension. I stamped the sentiment onto a strip of white card and attached this across the card blank. To finish I added the fussy-cut holly using silicone glue.

Thanks Clare!

We will have more Seasonal Throwback Thursday projects to share over the next couple of weeks, so don't forget to check back!

Happy Crafting xx