40 "Found" Objects to Use for Printing and Stamping

Purchased stamps and rubber printing blocks are readily available in stores, but dozens of items that can be used for stamping and printing are lurking right in your own home. Many of these make very interesting patterns and designs, and they're free! Look in your junk drawer, bathroom, kitchen, garage, craft stash, tool shed and back yard for:

1- Bottle caps

2 - Jar lids

3 - Wine corks (both synthetic and real)

4 - Feathers

5 - Potato mashers

6 - Lace

7 - Trim from a fabric store (flat profile cotton trims that can be glued to matboard)

8 - Paper doilies (use as stencil, then incorporate the doily itself into your collage)

9 - Household sponges

10 - Foam packaging materials

11 - Styrofoam packaging materials

12 - Buttons with a flat profile (glue onto the end of a wine cork to use)

13 - String

14 - Rope

15 - Cording

16 - Dental floss containers with flat bottoms

17 - Tennis shoes and flip flops with patterns on the soles

18 - Wallpaper with flocked or embossed designs (not plastic coated)

19 - Caps from cosmetic products (often have unusual or interesting shapes)

20 - Open weave fabrics such as burlap

21 - Heavy weight upholstery fabric with raised designs (Glue to matboard scrap to use as a stamp)

22 - Foam hair curlers

23 - Insulated pipe wrap from home improvement stores (can be incised with patterns or left plain)

24 - Drywall tape

25 - Cardboard scraps (peel off outer layer(s) to get an interesting stamp)

26 - Matboard scraps (use the edges to stamp straight lines)

27 - Pencil erasers

28 - Leaves from plants such as ferns

29 - Keys

30 - Foam meat trays (Cut into desired shapes, incise details with a ballpoint pen)

31 - Foam garden kneelers (Cut into pieces, use woodburning tool to make surface designs)

32 - Bubble wrap

33 - Carpet liner

34 - Rubber shelf liner

35 - Plastic or rubber placemats with raised or openwork designs

36 - Window screening

37 - Mesh

38 - Foam paint rollers

39 - Corn and callus pads (Affix to matboard scraps and stamp circles and ovals with them)

40 - Cookie cutters and biscuit cutters

Do you use any found objects for stamping or printing that are not listed here? Please share them with us. Let's see how many items we can add to this list!

©2015 Lynn Edwards