Art Journaling and "Around the House" Stamps

Today I wanted to share some of the fun little goodies I find around my house to use as stamps in my journal. I guess I also use them on regular canvases, but my journal is my place of experiment. I try things out there to see how they work. It is amazing to me how mixed meda can totally overtake the brain. I just have to laugh. I look at things like, "Ohhh, Hmmm that would leave a fab mark." Mind you, I am probably looking at someone's trash. :) Or how about stealing my kids toys because they would make a great stencil.  Or worse...what about the urge to buy something new simply for it's packaging. I know, like me, you raid the hubby's garage stash of "man stuff?" 

Hmmmm, maybe other people's scraps become your treasures? 

  See, complete mixed media junkie. Ha!

 Here are a few bits of "trash" I have in my "texture drawer." 

You may have seen some of these things used many times. I have seen bottle caps of all sizes used. But, don't forget about oddly shaped shampoo lids, Play-Doh tops, the plastic from small toy containers (the dome in the pic above), different jar tops, or little boxes.

I love the oval shape of my old shampoo bottle. Circles can be found pretty easily, so when you spot something with a different shape snag it!

Now, I must admit...in the next picture you will see some things that are stolen from my kiddies. I admit it. I step on half of these things when they are laying all over the floor most of the time. My kids now know that things left around after clean up time are fair game. 

They might end up in the drawer. Hee Hee!

Look at all that fun stuff!

If your kids (or nieces, or nephews, or friend's kids) are like mine, they have 5 trillion Lego pieces. They will never know if you go in there and take a few. Look around for some of these things or better yet, clean out the toy chest. There are bound to be tons of little stamping goodies in there.

Look at that! The hunt is well worth it. So many yummy marks to texture your backgrounds. I think it would be pretty fun to get the kids involved too. Have them look around their rooms for small toys that they would like to donate to Mommy's (or Auntie's, or Grandma's, etc) artsy cause. So fun! They may find something fabulous!!

Let's talk about fabulous. Look at this Lego wheel and what it can do. 

By far one of my favorites!

What are some of the things you like to stamp with???

Happy Hunting!