Make Your Own Stamps for Collage Paper and More!

My painting and collage have been put on the back burner for a while due to the holidays and then some family stuff. Until I get back to it, here is a little tiny tutorial on how to make stamps easily and affordably using things you might find around the house and the dollar store. 

First of all, head to the dollar store or Walmart and buy yourself a package of craft foam that is adhesive on one side. Draw designs on the foam, and then cut out with a craft knife or scissors. You can then peel of the backing of the foam and adhere your design to almost anything. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Here are some examples of stamps that I have made:

1. Craft foam adhered to jar and bottle lids.

2. Leftover mat board, one with elastic bands, and the other with craft foam.

3. Craft foam adhered to styrofoam cut from fast food containers.

4. Design carved into styrofoam from fast food container with a ballpoint pen.

5. Pattern carved into erasers with a craft (X-ACTO) knife. Be careful! Sharp!

6. Craft foam adhered to foam insulation. (You can buy a sheet of this at the hardware store and cut it into small pieces).

Here are a few (a lot!) of my favourite stamps that I use over and over.

You can use a Gelli Plate as a stamp pad and cover the plate with acrylic paint using a brayer. For smaller stamps, you can use an ink pad. If you don’t want your stamped image to run, use a permanent ink. Here are some papers that I quickly made with some of my new stamps.

Jar lid stamp

Elastic band stamp

Bottle lid stamp

As you can see, you can use the gelli plate as a stamp pad to directly stamp on paper. Then you can place paper onto the Gelli Plate and make a print. So, have fun! Look around your house to see what you can use. I use all kinds of things to stamp: Egg cartons, empty toilet paper roll, lids, buttons, etc. Happy stamping!