I decided to make some snowflake stamps and stencils today. I wanted to finish up a page in my sketchbook that I had started that had a winter poem on it.
I transferred the designs on to paper backed sticky foam and started cutting. These were a bit intricate and took a while to cut out.
Here’s the five stamps I made. I used copyright free clip art I found online for the designs.
I had planned on using this design as a stamp but then I decided it would work much better as a stencil.
I traced it on to the stencil plastic.
And cut it out with my trusty X-acto knife.
I peeled the paper off the back of the stamps and put them down on clear plastic.
I liked how the paper looked all curled up after peeling it off the stamps.
I decided to paint some papers blue first and then I would work from there. I didn’t take a photo of the paper just blue but while the paint was still wet, I put the stamp down on to the wet paint. I didn’t add any extra paint, just the dry stamp. And the photo above shows what happened. The stamp caused the paint to darken where the stamp was placed.
And the stamps even showed through to the back side of the paper. I really like this effect and will definitely try this again with other stamps.
Here’s one of the pages after drying.
I then added some white paint and some light blue paint with the stamps and stencils.
It snowed most of the day here today so I’m sure that must have influenced how these pages turned out.
Here’s the page that I originally planned to work on. The poem is called Winter Grace by Patricia Fargnoli. You should be able to read it if you click on the photo to enlarge it.
And I finished up a few of the pages that I had started before. I added a quote to the iris page.
Added some leaves to my roses.
And colored in my ghost flowers. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and a Merry Christmas. Thanks for stopping by and I appreciate all your comments and support.
Ruth Lane Art 
The snowflake prints are beautiful – I like the effect you achieved with the dry stamp – and of course the good thing about making the stamps is that you can use them again and again. The finished page with the stencil is magical. (I would be loathe to throw away the paper that you peeled off the backs as it looks great all curled up.)
The ghost flowers are prettier in yellow and the leaves on your roses are perfect.
Thanks Lyn – I didn’t want to throw the paper away either but that’s why I took a bunch of photos. I already have too much stuff in my studio room already!
They are all beautiful Ruth! I’d hate to throw away the paper as well, but understand keeping too much stuff. You had to have a ton of patience to cut out those stencils. Kudos to you.
Thanks Marilyn – it did take nearly all morning to get everything all cut out. But it was worth it. 🙂
Love the snowflake stamps and your unusual technique, I assume the stamp was removing some white paint hence the flakes became darker?
Thanks Teri. There wasn’t any white paint. Just dark blue paint. It seemed to concentrate the paint into the stamped area.
Hello Ruth. Your art journal snow flake Iris and roses pages are truly gorgeous… Very creative to make you own stencils and rubber stamps. I had not idea their was rubber stamp foam to cut out motifs on…or stencil paper.. Thanks for sharing your creative stamps.
Thanks Judy! I like to have my own designs included in my work instead of using commercial stuff. The foam is just kid’s craft sticky foam that you can buy at discount places. It comes in big packs and is really inexpensive.
Thanks Ruth for the information, much aapreciated.
These are beautiful Ruth, especially the snowflakes. Thanks for all your inspiration throughout the year – have a restful Christmas!
Thanks Kim! Hope your Christmas is wonderful!
The snow flakes are great. Your journal pages are always beautiful. Do you start a new one each year?
Thanks Ann! I keep going on my journals until I fill them up. Right now I have 2-3 going. Sometimes it takes me a long time to get through one and other times it goes pretty quickly.