5th Saturday - Stamping without Stamps

As you know, we are a stamping challenge, and by that we mean  stamping with traditional rubber or clear polymer stamps - but have you ever thought about other things around the home you can use for stamping?

Almost anything that has a defined shape and isn't going to  soak up the ink can be used to stamp with. It's a good idea to experiment on scrap paper because different things work better with different inks - this shows up well in my first sample, where I have used a dragonfly shape that has been cut using foam sheet.  I stuck it to my acrylic block with a dab of glue stick that washed off the block easily afterwards. The multi-coloured dragonflies were stamped with a Kaleidacolor pad, which is a dye ink, and some of it soaked into the foam making the images quite light - perfect for a background. The salmon pink ones use a Versacolor ink which is much thicker and "juicier", resulting in a bolder image.

My next sample uses a cardboard tube from the centre of a roll of toilet paper! I squished it into a heart shape and dabbed it on the inkpad - again, the pigment ink worked better

However if you want to use bubble wrap to stamp with, a dye based ink is a better bet because the juiciness of a pigment pad can force ink up between the bubbles, giving you a smudged finish. I used a Kaleidacolor ink for this stamping.

You may remember potato printing as a child, or with your own children, but you can carve any firm vegetable into a stamping tool - these butterflies were stamped using a parsnip

And finally how about using the eraser tip of a pencil? They never seem to be terribly good at actually erasing things, so here at last is a use for them.

We'd love to hear about what unusual objects YOU have used to stamp with!

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