Recycled Styrofoam Stamps

I love discovering the unconventional beauty in found objects - I am constantly looking into our recycle bin and thinking about how we can use everyday materials in creative ways. The kids have been very interested in stamps lately and so I thought we could recycle some styrofoam trays we had from produce into our own handmade stamps (why do cucumbers need to be packed on styrofoam trays anyway?!?!).

This activity was so easy! We used a metal skewer to carve an image into a square of styrofoam. My daughter visualized what she wanted her design to look like, but it would be easy to have children preplan their stamp by sketching it on a piece of paper first.

Next she affixed the stamp to a large foam block (with some tape) so that it had a base that could easily be grasped.

She gently stamped her paper after wetting the stamp with an ink pad and....voila! Her own unique, recycled stamp!

My daughter spent much time creating many new designs and testing them out on her papers. Next I'm going to encourage her to use her new stamps to design stationary that can be used to write letters to her friends and family!