I have been packaging some photography that I have for sale.  I thought  it would be a good  idea to trace over some interesting shapes and lines in these photos before I sealed them in their sleeves.  With these pencil tracings on tracing paper, I can flip them over and RUB the tracing onto the very inexpensive product called Foamies.  Now Foamies makes their own shapes and sells them complete with adhesive on the back so you can make stamps, but I prefer to be more original and adventurous so I made mine from the plain sheets of foam and cut out my own shapes from a drawing or the shapes from my photographs.  The exciting thing about this type of stamp is that you can press into it with a pencil and create wonderful details…or not, as the case may be.  Your image can be as basic and primitive as you like it or more detailed.

Who doesn’t from time to time need the image of  part of an old building that looks like it is on a slope?

I take photographs of old barns and sheds with all of the lines of slats they have.  For instance…

…from this photo, I made a tracing of the doorway in the lower right hand corner, pressed it onto the foam, cut it out, and made pencil marks on the lines of the slats…

…to make this stamp

Results?

More stamps from drawings.

Distress ink is too wet and doesn’t stamp really well unless you want that kind of look.

You can create positive or negative images.  Foamies sheets are very useful tools.