Stamping and printing crafts can be fun projects for all ages. A simple stamping craft is to cut up sponges into various shapes, dip them in paint, and stamp designs on a piece of paper. You can make actual pictures out of the stamps such as animals, people, and nature scenes. Once you’re done stamping with the sponges, allow the paint to dry. Then, trace around the sponge art with a crayon or marker to define the edges. You can even add extra touches such as eyes and mouths to people, tongues and tails to animals, and birds to scenic outdoor pictures. Of course, one of the simplest printing crafts is to go to a craft store and buy a variety of rubber stamps and colored ink. Have children stamp on a large piece of butcher paper, creating full pictures from their stamps. Stamps of flowers, birds, and animals could turn into a picture of a park. A fun printing craft is potato printing. Cut a potato in half, then mark a pattern on the potato with a pencil. Cut out the pattern. Dip the potato in a saucer of paint and print the pattern on dull paper. Another printing craft, string printing, requires thick paint, dull paper, and some string. Fold a piece of paper in half and open it back up. Dip some string into the paint and put it on one half of the paper and fold the other side of the paper down on top of it. Press down and open it back up. Now you have a printed string picture! You could also put something heavy, like a book, on top of the paper when it is folded over and then slowly pull out the string. This makes an interesting, smeared pattern.
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