I’ve been fooling around with stamps a bit more and have stared playing with sheets of thin foam. Its great to work with and easy to cut into stamps. It can also be used to make printing blocks in the same way as meat trays; it can be engraved with a ballpoint pen.
Here are a couple of stamps and a block made from foam:
Here is the impression that the foam block leaves on fabric. (I used Lumiere Metallic Bronze and applied it with a brush)
And another, using Lumiere pearl Blue:
An assortment of impressions and a meat tray foam block.
The foam can be cut quite finely. I made this “B” stamp to be used on the first page of a book I’m working on. It’ll be the “B” in “Beatus”, the first word in medieval books of Psalms. The plan is to stitch details and add more substance, but I like the feeling of the paint on fabric of this piece.
Thinking I could make a stamp on foam by drawing with Jones Tones Plexi glue a relief, I ended up making, not a stamp, but a cool thing in and of itself. Here’s what the glue looks like on foam:
When you paint the foam with glue drawing and trim it, you get something like the design below; a drawing in relief with painted accents. It gives the feel of being embossed. The Jones Tones glue stuck to the foam without difficulty and is nice and flexible. I’m now thinking of incorporating pieces like this into a book…
On a final note, I’m working on a piece using paper on leather and have been playing with a beaded border.
I actually think I’m going to work the beads along the binding. So far it’s not bad, but there’s still lots to be done. The brown space that still exists on the piece will be embellished in various ways hitherto undecided and I plan to cut away a few holes and have other images show through. It’s a work in progress….
Raising the Bar Strength & Conditioning 
I think you’re really on to something here. I particularly like the little embossed bronze looking piece…almost like jewelry. Who knew styrofoam could have such uses! Keep it up!
Mom