In Home Entertainment: DIY Patterned Stamps

We pulled together a serious list of new art projects to try from our recent visit to the New York Children's Museum of the Arts, including some super cool DIY patterned stamps. We used those we made at the museum to make gift wrap, but at home, we used our stamps to make (or tried to make)  cards. And, especially the second go around for us, making the stamps is an art project in and of itself.  Here's what you'll need:

(1) a large'ish piece of cardboard for the stamp base (mom cut ours out of a box);

(2) self-adhesive foam shapes. On our museum visit, the art teacher offered sticky geometric foam shapes (like these) and larger foam sheets out of which you could cut your own shapes (like these). We had a bunch of holiday shaped foam stickies floating around, so we used those; and 

(3) do-A-dot markers. 

Stick your foam shapes in whatever pattern you wish onto the piece of cardboard. Use the do-a-dot markers to liberally dab color onto the foam shapes. Then stamp away! 

We found that plain (as opposed to glittery) foam shapes worked better to hold the marker color. And the cards we tried to stamp had a coating on them, so those didn't work out well either. Stick with plain paper for the best results. 

I stamped my pattern a few times and then went back in with the markers to add some more color. Kane mostly just wanted to make the stamp. Then wanted to stick the foam shapes onto the card directly, which was fine too.