Making Your Very Own Bird Stamp & Burlap Tags

Through the years, I’ve taught art at several venues: in homes (to home schooled children), at a home school co-op, and at Our Savior’s Lutheran School, where my children attended from pre-school through to middle school. Whenever I teach about printing to younger students, I do a stamp project, using foam core board and foam craft sheets.

I’ve been wanting to make my own bird stamp for a long time because I’m too darn cheap to buy one full-price, and I haven’t been fortunate enough to find one at a garage sale, yet!

Here is the finished bird, already cut out from the foam sheet.
First I sketched him on a piece of craft foam with a pencil.
He’s about 2 1/2″ across. I used a 1/8″ hole punch to give him an eye.

As you can see here, I glued him onto a small square of foam core,
(available in large 22″ x 18″ sheets at Dollar Tree).

Here’s a test using black acrylic craft paint that I applied with a foam brush. The light blue feet resulted from a bit of stamp pad ink that I neglected to clean off properly. I have found that with larger stamps, especially those made of foam, I have much better results with paint than ink.

Because my first stamp ended up being larger than I really wanted, I made another one. This one is about an inch across, and I decided not to give him an eye. I like him better–what do you think? You can see in the photo above that I tested the new stamp on a piece of burlap. The results made me very happy 🙂

Here, I used it on a page from a French text. The first impression (above) resulted from stamping immediately after stamping on burlap, without cleaning the stamp or reapplying paint. The burlap left a pattern on the stamp, which then showed up on the paper. Cool, huh? The bottom is just a normal imprint. These little scraps will get used for something someday 🙂

So then I decided to make tag using burlap that could then be decorated with one of my new stamps. I used my Big Shot die cutter to fashion a burlap tag, along with one made from a brown paper bag.  I stamped a bird onto the burlap tag using black acrylic paint. After the paint dried, I Modge Podged the two tags together. After it dried, I Modge Podged the edges to prevent the burlap from fraying, then looped some twine through the hole and I was done.

NOTE: What to do if you don’t have a die cut machine? Cut out a paper bag or cardboard rectangle using a paper cutter.  Glue it onto a piece of burlap. After it’s dried, trim the burlap to the size of the cardboard. Then cut off the corners–cut one, then use that cut-off triangle to measure and make an identical cut on the other side. Punch a hole at the top. Decorate, string with twine, and you’re done.

Next, I got the idea of wrapping a straight-sided glass (29 cents, Salvation Army) with a piece of burlap stamped with my little birdie. I brushed Modge Podge onto the sides of the glass and applied the stamped burlap. After it dried, I applied another coat of MP to the surface of the burlap.

 And here’s the result: a perfect votive holder or maybe a pencil holder? Planter?

Here I made the stamps using numbers instead of my bird. I attached these tags to light cardboard (from a cereal box) making them much sturdier than the brown paper sack backed tags.

This photo demonstrates how to edge your tags with a bit of Modge Podge to keep them from unraveling.

As you can probably tell, I had a lot of fun with my bird stamp! I’m already planning other applications. Like I said, I’ve been wanting a bird stamp for a long time…

I think these numbers would look great attached to some baskets or bins, or even hanging on large mason jars. What do you think?

Bye for now,