First Experiments with Mouldable Foam

Hello Everybody,

It's been a while since I last posted anything.

I trust you are all well, that you had an enjoyable weekend and that Monday has been kind to you. 

The craft space has been sorely neglected these last few days but I did squeeze in some time to have fun with mouldable foam.

I sourced some Magic Stamp Moldable foam, from Sticky Tiger Craft Supplies, as far back as June just as we were going off on holiday. Consequently, it's been on a shelf and forgotten until now, even though it seemed a really neat way of making my own stamps. The way it works is that you heat the foam with heat tool and then press it on to any cool textured surface for 15 – 20 seconds and what you find, once it is inked up, is that it produces a reverse image stamp. To remove the image all you have to do is reheat. As you can see, I used a collection of buttons for one stamp, this worked very well, and the net wrapping from a pack of oranges for the other - this worked well too but I think it would have made a better impression if it had been opened up to just one layer.  I tried out a variety of ink pads too and ended up with four very nice impressions.

And with them, I made these four cards ... two very useful baby cards, a yellow card with a cute cartoon cow image suitable for a baby's birthday and the red and black card for a model railway enthusiast in the family.

The boy's card ... the button embossing folder went very nicely with the newly formed button stamp. Here it is stamped in turquoise ink then die-cut (a Spellbinders Label) and matted on to teal cardstock. The polka-dot paper that forms the layer beneath the embossed panel and the upper layer of the butterflies is from stash, maker unknown, as was the blue seed shaped pearls. The butterflies are a mix of die-cut (various dies) and punched shapes.

The basis of the girl card is the same as the one for the boy but this time it's embellished with flowers (Marianne's Collectibles), tiny pink polka-dotted buttons and pink gems. 

For the yellow piece I chose a Nellie Snellen stamp, Cow-Boy, coloured with ProMarkers and the paper is double-sided Dots & Stripes, Lemon Drops Small Dots, by Echo Park. The little windmill is handmade from a 2" square of the paper. 

The last card uses the piece stamped with the orange netting impression. It's teamed with a panel embossed using Tim Holtz Steampunk folder, black card gilded with silver wax, and Stamps Away's Steam Train stamp (from CleverCuts) coloured with ProMarkers.

It was great fun trying out the foam and now my mind is buzzing with ideas of what could be used to create more stamps, e.g, cogs, wheels and sprockets from timepieces, sequin waste, shells, etc. I've even kept the trimmings of a stamp plate I cut up recently to make a mosaic - could be interesting. Now you've seen my humble efforts, I hope some of you are persuaded to try these fun little mouldable squares out for yourself - I'm sure you can think of even more interesting items with which to produce your very own stamps. 

I used one or two snippets here, of course :) The white card for the toppers on both the yellow and the red card, and the black card for the embossed panel in the red too, which means I can hop over to Di's, Pixie's Sunday Snippet Playground - Week 92, and join in the fun.  

I apologise for not being around much at the moment, can't say when I'll be back but I will try to keep posting whenever possible until normal service can be resumed :) 

Take care and happy crafting,