Homemade Foam Stamps

M loves those little capsules that have foam shapes in them.  I’m sure you know what I’m talking about – you put them in warm water and wait, oh, about an hour, for the capsule to dissolve and reveal what was all squished up inside.  They are a patience-practicing activity, although I’m not entirely convinced that the gratification of finally seeing *what it is* is really worth the amount of  patience spent, but I digress…

The truly irritating thing about these little guys is that once you know what they are… the fun is over.  They lie around the house making me crazy with their purposelessness.

The million or so peanut butter jar lids that I have don’t make me crazy, because I know sooner or later they will have a purpose. :)  

I tried gluing these little foam guys onto our saved lids with regular craft glue, but after it dried it peeled right off the plastic.  I would’ve tried super glue, but, no kidding, all 3 tubes of super glue that we have are glued shut.  I couldn’t budge them and gave up.  So, I ended up using mounting foam.  I got this in a strip, like a roll of tape, at Dollar Tree a few weeks ago.  It’s useful for all kinds of things.  I liked it for these stamps because it makes them stick up a little farther and makes it easier to just ink the shape instead of the whole lid (if that makes sense?).


We tried them out and they were a success!  M loved using them.

Of course cleaning up was the real test… we had used paint for stamping with them and I just gently washed them under running water, pressed the sponge down to get most of the water out, then let them dry.  They stayed put together very nicely!  $1.00 for a new set of stamps isn’t bad!


Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – May 3, 2010

 Oops!  No picture of the Art Box this week, although I was positive I took one.  It had the usual paints, paper, scissors, glue… collage supplies, glitter glue, some tissue paper, foam letter stickers, and a cardboard tube.

M’s big creation of the week was this:A “talking log”. ;)  It has eyes and everything you could want on a talking log… and yes, it does talk… as long as M’s mouth is at one end. :)

He did some watercolor paintings…

This one is of “garden hoses and caterpillars” (seriously, who paints pictures of garden hoses?):

And this one is of “kangaroo pawprints”: 

He made a paint and sticker collage, with a glitter pen drawing in the background: 

And he experimented with making a tissue paper collage: This was actually a big step forward, since all he normally wants to do is toss tissue paper in the air and blow it around. :)

Have some children’s art you’d like to show off?  Link it up below (remember to link back here in your blog post)!

Have a beautiful day! :)