DIY Rainbow Stamp Artwork
Brighten you day and your wall with this super quick and easy Rainbow stamp artwork.
Long before I started blogging, I made this enormous stars and stripes stamp art from vintage stamps. I needed to buy a lot more than I really needed so that I could sort through and get the colours I wanted (red white and blue largely). The remainder went into a cute jar in my craft room, where they have sat for about 4 years. I have used a few of them on and off since them, but the jar doesn’t really do justice to these mini works of art in their fabulous colours.
I’ve been looking for a way to use these and get them out the jar ever since. Hurray. This rainbow stamp artwork ticks the boxes of quick and cheap and easy.
Creating the Stamp Artwork
Not always, but a lot of the stamps have a definite single prominent colour. This makes them great for mosaic work. What isn’t so easy, or a smaller scale artwork is the size of the stamps themselves. I don’t like cutting in to the stamps, from a purely aesthetic point of view – so any picture I make has to be fairly simple as a graphic. I.e colour blocking rather than detail. For that reason they are perfect for flags!
Sorting through the stamps I had, I decided a rainbow effect would be easy to achieve with the colours available. It also allowed me to use a lot of the prettier stamps, and a range of 7 main colours. The range of shades within a colour is quite large, so group them roughly…you can grade them by shade when you have enough of each colour.
Lay out the design before you start.
This particular stamp artwork is destined for Abbis room. The stamps will be glued to a simple piece of canvas (heavy cotton would work as well).
Its a less formal picture than a square canvas, or framed piece of paper would be, and much cheaper too. Cut a piece or canvas larger than your design, allowing plenty of space for the top to roll over, and a margin all the way round. Remember you can always trim to fit after you have stuck them on.
Then simply transfer the stamps onto the canvas and glue into place. I use PVA glue (Elmers). Its pretty quick, this lot took me around 30-40 minutes to glue.
It is easy to get a bit out of line when you stick, so use a ruler or tape to keep the bottom line straight.
Then for each layer as you work up the colours, glue the outside stamp in place first, working in to the middle.
Difference in gaps won’t be noticed in the middle – where they would be far more noticeable at the edges.
When you get near the top (maybe two stripes away), glue the top layer in place leaving a space for the remaining stamps.
This ensures nice straight edges around the outside of the stamps. Leave for around 30 minutes to dry fully.
Hanging the Stamp Artwork
I am planning to display the canvas using an old stick as the hanger.
I found a stick in our local woods, that was dried out enough to use. If its short enough, you could dry in a very low heat in your oven. I removed the bark, sanded, and brushed with varnish. If you live near the beach, and can get hold of drift wood, all the better.
Take the canvas, and fold over the top, sewing a pouch for the stick to go into. I used a machine, but you can hand sew if necessary – or glue, but then you won’t get the coloured thread effect. And isn’t this neon thread awesome?
You could do this stage before you glued the stamps if you prefer. In fact, when I sewed this, I made half a dozen mini canvases in different coloured threads at the same time. n.b. make sure your stick is thin enough (or your pouch thick enough) to thread the stick though.
Push the stick into the pouch, and tie a string around. More neon fabulousness with this string!
And there it is, the finished art work. 
