Glue Stamped Papers

When putting together an art project my first priority is to get the kids to make as many of the materials as I can.

Now I'll admit it's easy to walk into a scrap booking or art supply store and fall in love with all the different papers....but it's so much more fun to make you own (cheaper too)!

Whenever I give one of my presentations I always talk about building a paper stash.  What I mean by this is as you work on a project make a few extra papers...they always come in handy. Store them by color and pull them out when you need a quick cut and paste project.  Because the papers are handmade the project will look incredible and the kids will remember all the techniques they used to create them.
 My Monster project uses this stash you can also start building your stash while making the papers for this project:

The Valentine Collage

A cool paper to try is a glue stamped one...it's a resist.  The glue resists the paint and leaves a ghost like image when painted over.

For these papers you need:
- some stamps (any type will do)
- regular white glue
- paper to be stamped
- disk tempera, watercolor, or watered down acrylic

Pour a little glue on a plate or flat container, you just need a little.

Dip your stamp into the glue, you only need a thin coat and then stamp onto your paper.  To get a nice random look be sure to have some stamps going off the sides.

Let dry.

Paint with some tempera, watercolor, or watered down acrylic paint.  The glue resists the paint and you get that nice ghostly image.

Here is another glue stamped paper.

Here I am printing glue dots on top of an old book page.

I love using book pages especially from old hardcover books that I get from the discard pile in the library.  Choose children's chapter books, that way you don't have to worry about any objectionable words.

 


These old pages take the water based paint very well.

For this project I added a skyline. 

Used papers from the stash to cut out windows....another good use for those book pages is to have the kids search through them and pick out words and phrases to construct some poetry or text to go with the art project.

Add a self portrait cartoon style and you have a completed project.

see you next time!