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Hand holding craft foam stamp and showing the camera the underside with ink on it.
Print Recipe

DIY Craft Foam Stamps (Awesome & Easy Printing!)

DIY Craft Foam Stamps are easily made from craft foam and are easy to use to print cards and pictures. Use repeatedly for cute print designs.
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time35 minutes
Total Time40 minutes
Course: Craft, DIY Card, Paper Craft
Cuisine: Craft
Keyword: craft foam stamps, diy craft foam stamps, diy foam stamp, diy sponge stamps, family activity, How do I make stamps from craft foam?, kids craft, making foam stamps, making stamps with craft foam, styrofoam stamps
Servings: 4 craft foam stamps
Author: Shelly
Cost: $2

Equipment

  • Embossing stylus or ballpoint pen
  • Scissors or Curved sharp point cuticle scissors
  • Hole punch

Ingredients

Instructions

  • First off, think about what you would like to create. It works well to use several stamps to make an item instead of one large stamp. It’s hard to get even ink distribution over a large stamp, and then to get it to stamp well onto the paper.
    Think about what you would like to do and how you could break it up into several parts.
  • Get your foam sheets out, especially those little scraps that have been left from other craft projects.
    Use a permanent marker or a pencil or a ballpoint pen to draw the outside border of the shape onto the craft foam.
    It may help to simplify the shape of your object as much as possible.
    For example if you make a flower pot, the rim could be one stamp in a rectangle shape. The bottom part could be second stamp in a rectangle or I should say a trapezoid shape which has two slanting sides.
    You would then stamp them one at a time to build the picture that you want.
  • Once you have drawn your shape, then think about what design you may want on the center of your shape (which will be your stamp).
    If you will look at the design on the Christmas cactus leaf, there is a center line and a couple lines radiating out of that to look like the veins on the leaf.
    For these lines, use either a ball point pen or a stylus (like you might use in scrapbooking) to press these lines into the stamp.
    Where you draw and press these lines, the indention will keep the printing ink from showing in that area. This will cause there to be a white line on the stamped design where you draw this line on the stamp.
    Make the line fairly heavy without cutting through the stamp.
  • When you are finished drawing the shape and the lines that you would like for details on the inside of the shape, go ahead and cut out the shape on the outside line. 
  • The foam is not very thick. So on a couple of my stamps I spread a thin layer of glue on the back, and I glued it to another piece of craft foam. Then I cut out the second foam layer. This makes the stamp twice as thick and easier to handle.
    On one stamp (the Christmas cactus leaf), I then again spread glue on the back and placed it on a rectangle piece of foam to use as kind of a handle.
    Another option for a smaller stamp is to glue it to the end of a spool (from thread), or a jar lid, or the lid of a pill bottle.
    This is especially nice for a small children as they are able to grab a hold of the spool easily and stamp with it.
  • Use the ink pad to pat along the entire surface of your stamp, making sure that the entire surface area is well inked.
  • Set the stamp down on the paper and using your fingers, make sure that the entire surface of the foam comes in contact with the paper so that the ink is transferred over.
    The foam stamps are light enough so that they don’t make surface contact with the paper without a little bit of help.
    If you use your stamp more than once without re-inking it, the second time that you stamp the design will be lighter.
  • So both the Christmas cactus and the birds nest set of stamps were used on paper that was the right size to use for a note card.
    I cut an 8 ½ x 11 sheet of sketch paper in half (hamburger style). And then folded those pieces in half.
    The printing went on one outer section of the note card.
  • The last piece that I did was on paper that was cut to 5” x 7” and then placed in a standard 5x7 inch frame that was purchased at a discount house. I slipped it into the frame and was very pleased with the result. I’m going to use it as a gift!
  • Your stamps can be used repeatedly. You may want to try cleaning some of the ink off of them when you’re done stamping. Use a wet, paper, towel or a baby wipe works as well. I’ve also used a little bit of Windex on them before for good results.

Video

Notes

I’ve done three examples for you on the post that might get your creative juices flowing. Pop over to the post to see the examples.
First, I did Christmas cactus craft foam stamps, which is a good example of creating stamps to make a flower and its leaves.
I also created foam stamps that would make a birds nest, the eggs in the nest and leaves in the tree.
Lastly, I did stamps that were just designs and put them together along with a couple of the previous stamps to create an intriguing design.