THE MAKING OF A FOAM STAMP

I have wanted to try making some flower stencils to be used as backgrounds for mixed media papers.  Soooo, today i sat down and drew out a few shapes on tracing paper.

Then I turned the paper over on a thin sheet of craft foam and rubbed the paper over the pencil drawing with a stylus.  You could use a spoon, or your finger nail to do the same.   Then i started cutting the shapes out with a craft knife, and realized, i was making a stamp instead of a stencil, lol.  

Well... ok, so i grabbed my little fussy cutting scissors and just cut the shapes out.  Much easier to cut with them then the knife.

 

 As i cut each shape i placed it on my lamp base.  Then i played with them till I found a design i liked.  Why the lamp base?  It was there. lol.

While placing the shapes, i noticed that one flower could be removed and replaced with a heart, or any shape for that matter.

Next i found a piece of plastic to glue the shapes to.  I used a piece of a folder i had left over from cutting the shapes out of it to make a stencil.  

Then i used a pencil to add some details to the foam shapes.  Dots, dashes, circles and leaf veins.  Just playing around you know? 

 See the blank unpainted shape above in the left top quadrant?  Thats the replaceable spot.  When i stamped, i left it blank there.  Thinking i would add it after i stamped the images.

I put on some inexpensive plastic gloves purchased at the $ store, watered down a teal acrylic and smeared it on the stamp, leaving blank space.  Then i used some sparkle yellow acrylic straight from the bottle, and smeared it across the shapes, and stamped twice.  And then i added more paint and stamped again. 

 Quickly, I grabbed the heart shape and plopped it in the teal on my pallet and on the paper in 3 places.  I love the results!  Because my paper has 3 coats of home made very gritty gesso on it, the stamped image isnt completely filled in.  Love it!

Now, off to actually make the background layering stencil i thought i was making.