One Thing Always Leads to Another

an egg stamp tutorial

I found this great bargain on metal buckles at Wally's World for $1.00. I had a great idea about what to do with them.

alter them of course

In case you haven't noticed, I've been into eggs of late. I still am. It all started with the photos of my bird nest boxes with eggs. I believe ever bit of art that I have created since then has had eggs. Last weekend I needed an egg stamp or stamps and Wally's World just doesn't carry Michelle Wards beautiful stamps. That's the shopping options here, Wally's World or H E B Grocery.

So, having a little bit of rubber stamp carving supplies on hand, I get it out and very quickly carve two different sizes. One thing always leads to another and I remember the blue foam that I had and thought I would also cut out an egg shape from that. It already had a bit of design impressed in it and made a great egg stamp.

And that is the method that I want to demo for you. The first blue stamp above is the one that I made that day and used in the first pieces of art. Later last week I made the other two. The piece of blue foam already had the impression in it from the brass Heart in the lower right corner.

So here is what you will need:

Foam door knob hanger from craft department

Anything metal that has a design in it like the brass heart or bargain buckles

Heat Gun

Small piece of transparent plastic

Scissors and Pen

Use the heat gun to heat the foam. If you melt it, move over and try it again. It actually withstands a good amount of heat.
Immediately press the metal design into the foam just as hard as you can.

beeuteefull !!!

But if not, just reheat the same area and the impression will go away and you get

do-overs !

When I made the first stamp I just drew an egg shape on a piece of paper and drew around it on the foam. Today while working on the tutorial, I remembered a little piece of left over transparency floating around in the work area and thought if I made a template with it, I could see through it to audition where on the egg I wanted the design. Decide. Draw around it. With just regular scissors cut the shape out. Notice perfection is not an issue. As a matter of fact, the imperfection is ...... well perfect.

I did three different eggs today, using three different metal designs. But if you only have one metal design to use, you will discover that you can make many different eggs by just moving the template around. They will all come out looking totally different. Promise.

I have three new egg stamps and can't wait to use them. The brown eggs on white paper is stamp pad ink. Then I applied white acrylic paint with a foam brush and stamped the cards.

But, one thing always leads to another ............

...............................................................as it should be when your muse is watching. This is when norah's quick eye and hands took over my tutorial. I let her go and enjoyed the moment!

1. she really liked the little design and saw a crown

2. she dug around in the photos left from Ashley's egg page and grabbed one

3. she reached for a little bottle of Lumiere Metallic Acrylic and

4. she stamped the crown on

(dummy, it went off the edge and doesn't even look like a crown)

5. she grabbed a painted card

6. she laid the picture on the card and stamped the crown again

(yes, I like it)

7. She liked it....and said, " take photo" and

8. she turns the tutorial back over to me

and I continue. But now in this moment, I find it incredible to discover the blue and yellow complementary colors and I really like the way the crown goes off and creates layering opportunities. The point I am trying to make is that I was totally in the moment and enjoying the moment and not judging what I was doing. I was just doing it. I had no expectations and there were no little voices in my head saying no no no, what if it is wrong...etc. .............and

As this tutorial is titled, "one thing always leads to another", my dear h was assisting me by altering the bargain buckles. The are no longer buckles......

they are little metal frames. See. Whatca think? Might need to do a little more altering, they do look a bit too new.
The fun thing about the foam stamps, is the clean up. Just chunk them into your water bucket.

Yes indeed, time to clean up.

More later,

Sharon