Alphabet Stamp Art

Here's a fun one for ya!  I made this alphabet art for the Noah's ARC nursery with a little plastic toy I found at the Salvation Army warehouse.  To be honest, I'm not really sure what the toy's actually purpose was. It may have been for letter-shaped blocks or something, but I don't know.  All I know is that it had the perfect impression to make it into a stamp.  And you could do the same with anything that has an impression in it (doesn't have to be the alphabet).

For those of you who are new to the blog, here's a little background:  I'm designing a nursery with 3 other students from my school (Interior Designers Institute) as part of a contest put on by ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) Orange County Chapter and The Salvation Army's Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) in Anahiem.  Our 12'x12' space will be set up in the Huntington Beach Salvation Army store and judged against 3 other spaces set up in participating Orange County stores designed by other design schools.  For more info check out the Salvation Army's press release.  They'll be up April 13th through the 29th and aren't all nurseries, so if you're local, come by and check them out!  It's a great opportunity to see what you can create with donated items.  And our stuff will be silent auctioned also.

Anyway... back to the alphabet art.  I used the Sherwin Williams paint we got for the nursery.  Check out this post for details about colors.  (SW also accidentally gave us the lightest color on the coral swatch, "Angelic," so I used that too.)  But if you're doing this your self, you can really use any paint, wall paint, acrylic, tempera, whatever you've got!

First I painted the colors I wanted onto a piece of paper. I started out with the darker coral and blended it to the light.  Then I simply stamped the plastic piece into the paint and printed it on a piece of paper.  I recommend printing onto thicker paper so that it doesn't wrinkle.  I used a thick cotton paper that I had left over from a school project.  (I did this late at night in my garage, so please excuse the poor picture quality).

That's my first trial run.  I did a few more...  some didn't come out too great....

Then I decided to try adding the minty green color, which I liked even better for this project.

After a few tries, I discovered that it worked best if you check your stamp after you dip it into the paint to make sure that the whole stencil is evenly covered and not overly dry or wet in areas.  Then when stamping, make sure you have a flat surface underneath and press down on all areas of the stencil before gently lifting it off.

When you get one you like, simply measure and cut your paper to fit in your frame...

...and voila!

I also painted the frame because we're doing a gallery wall with frames in our color pallette.  What'dya think?

If anyone wants one of these and doesn't have the time or tools to make one themselves, I was considering selling some on Etsy.  I may even do custom colors if there's enough interest.  Let me know.