Easy peasy lemon squeezy foam stamp tutorial

This is such an easy thing to do, it probably doesn't even warrant the word 'tutorial' in the title, but I've bumphed it out with some other bits and bobs about using stamps with fabric paint, so hopefully you'll learn something :)


You will need:

• Foam stickers or shapes (if you want to know where to get them from, have a look in the hints bit at the end of the tute).


• Foam board, 3mm or 5mm (again, hints on where to buy at the end)


• Ruler and pencil


• Scissors or craft knife


• Glue (if you have foam shapes, you won't need it if you have foam stickers).


• Fabric paint


• Paintbrush


• Fabric to test on


• A new t-shirt / bag / tea towel / cushion cover for your final design

Choose the foam shape or shapes that you want to use for your stamp. Check the surface of your shape for any bumps or dips - this flower was a bit wiggly on one side, so I made sure I glued that side rather than printed with it, as even small blips can show up when you print.

Work out what size piece of foam board you need to cut. Try and have as little white space as possible around your foam shape, that way you'll know exactly where you will be stamping - if you have a weeny shape in the middle of a huge piece of foam board it'll be hard to know exactly where to place your stamp.

Cut your piece of foam board with a craft knife or scissors, and stick your shape on. Make sure you use a decent glue so the stamp will last longer.

Ta daaaaaa! That's it. But if you want to get the best out of your lovely new stamp, please read on.

This bit is important: Test your stamp. Find an old t-shirt or vest and play around with your stamp first. Try out different fabric paints with it, work out which way round is the best, etc etc. You'll find that your stamp comes out differently depending what fabric you're stamping on to. So if you want to print on a t-shirt, use a scrap piece of jersey to test with, if you want to print on a pillowcase, find some cotton. You get the idea :)

Prepare your surface for stamping. Wash your vest / tea towel / pillowcase before you stamp on it. A lot of fabrics are finished with chemicals that can reduce fabirc paint absorption, so make sure your fabirc is clean first. Iron, iron, iron. Any little wrinkles can cause blips in your stamping, and you don't want that. Use guides if you want to do things in straight lines - I ironed munchkin's top down the middle and then centred my flower over the ironed line, and for lettering I use masking tape as a guide.

Make sure your stamp is totally covered with fabric paint. The easiest way to tell if you've done this is to hold the stamp up to the light:

Always clean around your stamp before you print with it. See that bit of red on the foam board in the picture below? See the teeny red splodge next to the flower on the t-shirt? I completely cocked up did that on purpose to show you what happens if you're sloppy with your paint. The best way to clean is by using a baby wipe. The same goes for cleaning your stamp when you've finished using it, or want to change colours.

And while we're on the subject of cocking up intentional mistakes, mind where you're wafting your paintbrush :(

Make sure you follow the instructions for fixing your fabric paint. If it says iron for five minutes, then iron for five minutes (yes, I know it's really boring ironing the same small patch of t-shirt for five minutes, but it's worth it). If you've made a mistake, for example by waving your paintbrush around and catching the arm of your t-shirt with a big splodge of red paint, then I'd suggest it might be best to start again on a clean t-shirt. I've tried all sorts of things to get fabric paint out (even if it hasn't been heat sealed with an iron), and it's bloomin difficult.

Where to buy: Foam shapes seem to be everywhere - most craft shops stock them, and I've found lots of different ones in Tesco, mainly seasonal (Easter, Christmas etc.). I've even picked some up in pound shops in the children's art bit. Remember lettering will come out in reverse, so foam alphabet stickers aren't great unless you like mirror writing.

Foam board can be a bit harder to come by. eBay is probably the easiest way to buy it, although not the cheapest. If you're buying in bulk then Paperstone, Discount Graphic, and Art Discount all sell it by the box. Rymans sell it too, although it might be worth giving your local stor a ring first to see if it's in stock.

A final word on fabric paint. It's worth investing in decent stuff, because it can have a huge effect on your end print. I like Colourcraft paints (although their website isn't great), and I love Stewart Gill paints, especially the True Colour range.

There you go, pretty much everything I know about making and using foam shape stamps, in a blog post. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Autumn days when the grass is jewelled...

.....And the silk inside a chestnut shell
Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled
All these things I love so well

That was my all time favourite hymn ever in the world at primary school. You can watch a slightly naff photo montage piano version of it here with the full lyrics. *sigh* happy days :)


So it's autumn. I'm out of denial. It's not going to be summer again until next year (allegedly). It's long sleeved vest time again, and as Munchkin seems to have grown quite a bit (why do children insist on doing that?), I've had to buy some new ones. I chose plain white ones because they're cheaper, and can be customised, of course!


I've kept it nice and simple with a bit of stamping, as applique on a vest is a pain in the bum and I can't be faffed with it. Plus I have a squillion things to do, including putting together my very first tutorial. Yes, a tutorial! It's all very exciting. Whether anyone will actually bother following it or not is another matter, but it's the blood, sweat, tears and mental exhaustion thought that counts, right?

Beep beep!

Munchkin is crazy about vehicles. She likes cars, diggers, trucks, lorries, cement mixers, steam rollers, bin lorries, cranes, cherry pickers, trains....the list is never ending. She started at nursery for one afternoon a week recently, and on her first visit the only thing that would stop her crying was a big Caterpillar truck

She has quite a few vehicle toys, but as of yet no clothing to reflect her love of things with engines. I tell a lie, she has one top from Next that has a camper van appliqued on the front. But there appears to be little else out there if you're a girl and like cars. So I set to work :)

It was sooooo easy! I just made up a block stamp with foam shapes, et voila! I did a few test prints first to work out which fabric paint would be best.

The foam that the shapes came from works well as a stamp too, and I've printed up another tee with it, but it needs some words underneath - I'll try and finish it today. The tshirts were from a pack I bought in the sales, and I'm customising all four. Photos of the other three as and when I finish them. Toot toot!

Another cushion and a potential fabric goldmine

Remember the polar styley fabric I bought a while ago? I finally got round to making a quilt cover for Munchkin with it, although it is just a bog standard plain one rather than a patchwork one. I wanted to do a patchwork one using each of the little scenes on the fabric, and white and mint green strips of cotton as a border. But time and common sense intervened :)

As a compromise I've made this sort of patchwork cushion cover for her room instead. The polar bears were on a bit of waste from when I cut the cover out, so I sewed some beads and little snowflakes on to make them a bit more wintery, and then used some scraps of white to patch round them.

I'm off to a magic fabirc shop later this morning, that's only open 2 days a week and has most fabric at £3 a metre, or so I'm told by trusted sources. It's only a bus ride away, and I have no idea why I've never heard of it before. Maybe it's some sort of secret shop that you only get told about after you've done a certain amount of sewing? I'm off to check my sewing machine for bugs...

Mmmmmm, fabric....*drool*

Munchkin, grandma pickled weasel and I went to Manchester today, to do various bits and bobs of shopping. We just happened to be passing Abakhan's, as you do, and had a bit of a browse. And look what we managed to find!

Mmmm, yummy! The photo doesn't quite do it justice, it's a lovely soft cord, quite light and perfect for items of munchkin clothing.


This is a bit more heavyweight, perfect for cushions. Although I'm thinking maybe a nice big tote bag? Or maybe even a winter coat for munchkin, although I think the leaf pattern might be a little bit big.

And the grand total of my shopping spree? The cord was £2.99 a metre and the leaf fabric was £2.20 a metre. So I went and bought a lipstick from Estee Lauder because I'd saved so much money :D

Rhubarb and Custard

Mmmmmm, rhubarb....*drool*
Last night I made Rhubarb Cinnamon Polenta Cake, using this recipe from Nigel Slater in the Observer Magazine a couple of weeks ago. I'm always tearing out recipes and stuffing them in the back of my cook book in the hope that one day I'll get round to doing them, but they normally stay crumpled up and un-used :(

So this time I bought the rhubarb from the market specifically so I'd have to make it, and I finally got time last night. It was deeeeelicious, so much so it didn't even need custard :)

I've also had a chance to test out my new fabric paints, but I'm not that impressed. The sample I'd put through the washing machine didn't fare very well - the glitter had washed off completely from the purple! I had some T-shirt samples from wholesalers that I've been using as test garments and I thought I'd try out some Easter stamps and try washing them again. I'm liking the chicks, but thinking the design needs to end in 'egg': Egg, Chicken, Egg, Chicken, Egg! My quest for the perfect fabric paint continues....

Hello! Thanks for dropping by. This is my brand new blog, all shiny and sparkly and....well, empty! Hopefully it'll fill up soon with lots of pretty posts. I've made a promise to myself to blog every other day, usually on a crafty subject, sometimes about my daughter (known from now on as 'munchkin'), and an occasional rant on random subjects thrown in for good measure :)

So my opening post features all three:

a) I've just got some exciting new fabric paints and they go on their maiden washing machine voyage tomorrow - I've printed a couple of tests stamps on a piece of jersey and I'm testing them for staying power. They're acrylics for fabrics, and so far I've been impressed with them. Photos to follow if they survive a 40 degree wash.

b) Munchkin, above, wearing one of my products. Hence the excitement about new fabric paints :)

c) Those new plug-in fragrance every 30 minutes motion censor air fresheners. Are they really necessary? Has society really got to the stage where we need chemicals sprayed into our living rooms every 30 minutes? What smells are we trying to cover up? What's wrong with the smell of 'house' (bacon, coffee, sports kit, wet dog, bubble bath, woodsmoke, leather sofa, musty damp bit in the attic, burnt toast)? They're a waste of energy and they make me cross.

There you go, a taste of what's to come. Hope you'll be popping by again soon, I'll keep some biscuits in just in case.