Tips and review: diy heart stamps tested

Lovely hearts everywhere! I think hearts are cute for crafts year round and for special occasions, too. There are lots of ways to make heart shapes for all kinds of crafts. You can draw hearts, cut them, paint them, you name it…

Well, I wanted to make lots of hearts to decorate my crafts and came up with the idea to stamp them. Stamping is so easy and fun to do with kids, too. Even toddlers are pretty good at stamping!

I wanted to test different methods to stamp hearts DIY style and see which ones work the best. Stamping is so much fun and a great way to get lots of heart shapes done quickly and make them each look handcrafted, too.

The kids and I made heart stamps using four different methods. In this post I’ll show you how to make them and I also listed the pros and cons for each method. So, read on to get the best heart stamps!

What was tested

I chose four different methods to stamp heart shapes. I picked out methods that I thought could be easy to do with things you already have at home or are easily available at least. I used the same red nontoxic kids paint throughout the test.

The tested stamping methods are:

• Carved potato
• Cookie cutter
• Foam paper
• Toilet paper roll

Test results

Here are the test results presented with pros and cons for each method. The kids and I also rated each stamp on scale of 1 to 5 based on how easy they were to make and use.

Carved potato

First split the potato in half with a sharp kitchen knife. Make sure you cut straight through. The surface that you use for stamping should be even to get good stamps on your project. To easily carve the potato I used a small heart shaped cookie cutter and the same kitchen knife to cut around the heart shape to remove the excess.

I rate the potato 4.5 out of 5.

Pros:

• Usually have potatoes at home
• Really easy to make
• Good grip
• Easy to use
• Works great with kids, too
• Successful stamping guaranteed

Cons:

• Only usable for about one day
• Adult should use the knife, otherwise kid friendly
  

Cookie cutter

I applied the paint on the thick side of the cookie cutter to get more paint on the hearts.

Cookie cutter gets 3.5 out of 5.

Pros:

• Available in most homes, I presume
• Ready to use as is
• Durable
• Reusable
• Keeps its’ form
• Kids can use, too

Cons:

• Hard to get solid stamps done
• Didn’t seem to get enough paint or have spread evenly on the edge of the cutter
• Hurts your hand to press it down if you apply the paint on the thick side

Foam paper

I used the bigger heart shaped cookie cutter to easily cut the foam paper. I temporarily glued the foam heart to the bottom of a wooden box I had. The surface you glue or tape the foam heart on just needs to be flat. If you choose to tape the heart on, you should use double sided tape adhesive like this for example. There’s also foam paper with sticky back available. If you choose to go with that, you don’t need to worry about glue or tape.

Foam paper scores 3 out of 5

Pros:

• Easy to make in any shape
• Safe to make and use with kids
• You can create different patterns/textures on stamps depending on how you apply the paint on the heart as you can see in the pics

Cons:

• You need to have something to attach it to
• Difficult to apply paint evenly, would probably work better with an ink pad
• Slow and a lot of work to use if you don’t have an ink pad

Toilet paper roll

Easy to make! Just put tape around to make it stay in the form you want it to.

Toilet paper roll gets rated 1.5 out of 5

Pros:

• Every home has these
• Easy to make
• Good grip
• Safe to use with kids

Cons:

• Kids may need a little help shaping the heart
• We did not manage to get a single perfect stamp on the paper with this. Tried pressing gently, firmly, side to side etc. and nothing worked.

So, these were the results. Based on this test I would recommend getting quality heart shaped cookie cutters. They worked really with three different methods. And of course you could use them to bake heart shaped cookies for your loved ones, too. The carved potato won this test round fair and square but the cookie cutter was essential to get it done quick and easy, though. Obviously a sharp knife and some paint were needed, too. The only real con with potato stamp was that it wouldn’t stay usable for long. But that’s not so bad. You can easily make a new one next time you need heart stamps 😀

What do you think? Have you tried any of these DIY stamps? Which one are you going to choose for your next craft?

My kids got excited about the potato and it worked real great on the test, so we’ll go with that.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Happy crafting!