Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Compressed Sponge Stamping

Have you ever heard of Compressed Sponge?

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It's a way cool and very fun material that I like to use to create funky background paper, wrapping paper and gift bags!

If you've never seen it before the sponge material comes compressed into a very thin wafer.


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I bought the "scraps" bag...smaller pieces in all sorts of sizes at Michael's quite some time ago. You can purchase full 8 1/2"x11" sheets if you need a larger piece for a particular project or 3x4" packages as well. I've seen them at Kmart, on Create For Less, Amazon, etc.

Now I've used it 3 different ways which I am going to share with you but you may have some other ideas in mind...if you do, please feel free to share! I'm always up for new ways to use my goodies :)

First ~ Free-Hand...you can free hand cut any shape you can think of. Since it's compressed it's very easy to cut with regular scissors. No special tools needed!

Second ~ Stamped & Trimmed....


1. Stamp an image onto the sponge material using Archival Ink.

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2. Cut the image out and saturate it with water...this is the BEST part. It's so much fun to watch the sponge grow ~ Yes, I'm like a little kid ;)

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3. Stamp the image with acrylic paint onto your cardstock, wrapping paper, gift bag, etc. and let it dry. If desired you could use the paper as it is or since we used a stamp for the design you could continue on to step #4.

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4. (optional) Apply acrylic paints to the original stamp as shown.... I used a darker color of yellow for the petals than I used with the sponge image.

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and stamp over the sponge image....

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Third ~ Die-Cut....since this material is so thin you can die cut it!!

Here are just a few pieces I cut with my Sizzix dies & Big Kick cutter.

TIP: You can use both the positive cut image as well as the negative!!

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and the cool images you get from them...

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As I mentioned before this is perfect for making background paper, wrapping paper and gift bags. Since it's so much fun and so very easy it's the perfect activity to include your children or grand kids. They LOVE to watch the sponges grow and since you use acrylic paints clean up is a snap!

So what do you think?

Looks like fun doesn't it?

Would you like a bit of material to play with?

If you do just post here...

I'll send a sheet to the first 15 people who post!

25 comments:

  1. This looks soooo funny!!! I never heard of it. I had seen compressed towels, but not these sponges. I don't think they're available here in Spain. I Have to investigate...
    Great idea

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  2. How cool is that? I work in a nursery school and know exactly how hard it is to cut good shapes from a big sponge!

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  3. looks fab and something the kids would love too xx The big kids of course!!! lol

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  4. I love your idea of using the sponge for background color under the sunflower. Your blog is truly inspiring!!

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  5. wow that is such fun..it would make some wonderful journal backgrounds and atc backgrounds aswell as cool tags too ..fabulous indeed count me in ty Jan

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  6. This looks like a great idea and I'd love to give it a go! Thank you for the offer!

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  7. This looks so cool! Great idea!

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  8. I like the double stamped one. The die cut shapes are great idea too.
    Debbie

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  9. I bought some of these sponges a long time ago. DD got them wet before I could do any fun shapes.

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  10. This is an incredible idea! I love the idea!

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  11. What a clever idea. That looks like fun.

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  12. how fun is this!! totally forgot about this product, my mind is racing with ideas!!

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  13. I bought a pack awhile ago at AC Moore for like $.25 on clearance and just took it out the other nice. I love them.

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  14. How fun! I bought a roll of kraft paper a looong time ago intending to decorate my own wrapping paper. The sponges will make that easier and I may actually do it!

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  16. Looks very cool! I can see myself doing a lot of backgrounds for journal pages with this.

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  17. Oh this would be so much fun to try!

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  18. Too neat! Totally love that first example!!!

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  19. Oh I love this! Will have to google them and get some...just endless what you can do. Thanks for sharing this.

    Have a wonderful day,
    Stephanie ♥

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  20. Hi Roni -

    This looks like fun. I can see tracing my great-nieces' hands on them. They are 2 and 4, they would get a kick out of this. And Aunt Elaine would have a blast too - LOL!

    Elaine Allen

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  21. Roni-what a fabulous idea! Can't wait to try this if I can find the sponges!

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  22. What a fun idea ... so many possibilities.

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  23. I knew I was saving my acrylic paints for something!!! This technique will be a blast for me and my grandson!

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  24. I know I'm to late on this but wow what a cool technique. I'll have to try that one out with my grandkids. Thanks... Marita

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Thanks for your thoughts and comments!