Stamps from Packaging Foam

The first of three posts for today.

I received a parcel recently with some grey packaging foam, and as I took it out, it bore a striking resemblance to a piece of foam I bought at a craft show ages ago, called a “Magic Stamp” which you are supposed to warm up with a heat gun and then press onto something textured. This makes a stamp which you can use as many times as you want, and when you want to make another one, you just warm it up again and repeat the process.

I thought I’d try warming this packaging foam and see what happened – nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Here is the stuff I used for my little experiment.

You can see the “Magic Stamp” on the left – the blue block in the plastic bag. Next to it is a twist of kitchen paper with some pistachio nut shells in it that I saved ages ago to use in art, which I thought might make an interesting texture.

Then the stamp I made, and my heat gun. Front row: packing foam blocks, the stamping I did on a scrap of card, and a distress ink grabbed at random.

Here is the stamp I made. I could have warmed it more and pressed it harder onto the nuts, but the result came out OK!

The stamping. After stamping twice, I cleaned off the stamp by pressing it several times onto the card to give a softer impression, then wiped the stamp over the edges of the card.

Definitely some potential here! I am thrilled that this foam, which I was about to throw away, is going to come in really handy! I think it will also be a useful asset once I finally get going with gelli printing.

Shoshi’s motto: never throw anything away until you’ve thought about whether you can make art with it!!!