Stamping

There are countless stamps available in the shops with pre-cut designs and patterns already on them. You can either dye these stamps using an ink pad or by using edding 1340 brushpens. You can also then use them to stamp anything you can think of: paper, envelopes or tougher card. At the flick of a wrist, conjure up fabulous images, great wrapping paper or colourful birthday cards.

However, you can also design your own stamp motif with real ease using foam rubber.
Foam rubber (proper name: cellular rubber), is a really fine-pore elastic foam material available in many strengths and shapes. Foam rubber is available in sheets or as pre-punched parts.

If you have purchased foam rubber in sheet form, use a cutter, scissors or nail scissors to cut into the desired shape with ease (for curves, say). Children can also achieve their own creative ideas very simply using foam rubber.
So that you do not have to press the individual parts together for long, use a quick-drying glue, but not a superglue, because this will not be suitable for this purpose. In art-and-craft shops, you can get special foam rubber adhesives.
Foam rubber is also ideal for making stamps.
Read on to find out how to turn “boring” foam rubber  into stamps, large and small, in a matter of moments.

What you need to make your own stamps:
- a sheet of foam rubber
- old lids (e.g. from jam jar / drink bottles) or wooden blocks
- nail scissors
- ball-point pen
- glue
- edding 1340 brushpen
- paper for printing

Using the ball-point pen, draw various different shapes onto the foam rubber, for example stars or hearts, letters and flowers, animals and numbers - whatever you want!  Do not make your shapes too complicated because otherwise it will be difficult to cut them out later on.