DIY Tangrams Art
By: Natalie from Doodlecraft
A Tangram is a Chinese dissection puzzle consisting of 7 flat shapes.
They all fit perfectly in one square.
My dad is a Mathematician. He collects “smart games”.
He loves all sorts of thinking games, puzzles and riddles.
So I grew up putting tangrams together.
You can even make all sorts of things with the pieces…animals, people,and things!
Since geometric anything is all the rage, I though it would be fun to make
Rubber Stamp Tangrams art and cards!
This would be so fun to make for a teacher appreciation gift–A little stack of cards and some envelopes wrapped in twine!
Or just to send someone a smile in the mail!
Here’s the Tangram.
There’s a cool website that explains it all here.
How to Make Tangrams Stamps
Supplies for Tangrams Stamps:
Pink Carving Rubber: I got mine here…Speedball Carving Block
(you could do with with pink rubber erasers or scraps of cling mounted rubber)
Hobby Knife
Ruler, pen, scissors, 1.5″ square paper
Rubber Stamping Ink Pads or Crayola Markers
Paper to stamp on…lunch bags, newspaper, old books!
Supplies for Cards:
5 1/4″ x 4″ pieces of cardstock in white
5 3/8″ x 4 1/8″ pieces of cardstock in black
5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ pieces of cardstock in assorted colors…and then folded in half
Tape or glue stick
Begin by cutting a 1 1/2″ square of paper and make all the
folds and cuts for the Tangram.
Then trace the paper pattern onto the pink carving rubber.
Brace your lines with a ruler and make the cut with a hobby knife.
Just like this. Now you have 7 pieces to play with!
Now just add tape or a glue dot to the backside…and press onto an acrylic block in any pattern or design for stamping.
Like this bunny!
There’s so many fun designs…
But to get you started, feel free to save or print this picture as a reference.
Then cut them out with rubber stamp scissors.
They don’t fit together quite as nicely as the one cut from a single square…
but they are easier to use with the cling back…and still make the same adorable shapes!
Just arrange them,
However you want…
Press in ink…or, if you don’t have ink pads…use markers!
Press evenly onto paper. Do not rock back and forth.
Use a baby wipe or damp paper towel to clean up the excess ink…then rearrange and do it again!
This time, with a cat…or fox!
Pretty soon, your desk will look like mine! Just keeping it real here!
They are so cute in all their geometric glory!
Then if you are using them as cards, cut paper as outlined in the “supplies for cards” above and mount them together! Easy!
I totally love this whale.
Have you ever played with Tangrams? I’d love to hear about your experience with Tangrams in the comments below!
Natalie
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Oh i love these. It’s a wonderful idea. Thanks for the tutorial.
I shared this article on my site.
Great idea. For someone who is not a stamper, the tangram pieces could be cut from card stock or pretty paper & just glued down.
Natalie, thank you so much for this wonderful tutorial! This is by far the best idea that I’ve ever found for using up scrap rubber. I design and sell unmounted rubber stamps and will definitely be trying this out with my left over bits. Awesome job!
I book marked this page bout 2 weeks ago rough drafting a post that will be published tomorrow on my blog. I will certainly be linking to this post! Thank you SOOOO MUCH for the printable! I haven’t printed (YET) but will be this week; I need to dash to the dollar store and grab a peice of foam or a thicker sponge or something that will work in my 2 year old’s hand a bit better. Her developmental skills will go crazy with this! And, if I grab the right size stamp pad (which I also don’t have right now and we’ll be using it with paint this week because of that) it will go great in a busy bag for when we get stuck at the endless doctors office visits. Thank you so much!!!
This is a fabulous idea. Thanks for posting it.
I’m a “baby boomer”. My grandfather could make anything from wood. He made me a rocking horses with rope for tail and mane. Tables with roses cut into the center, and many wonderful hope chests. My favorite gifts were the tanagram pieces made from cardboard or wood. He would surprise me with different templates that resembled animals. He would keep the pieces until the next time we were together. I did, however, have a cardboard set of tanagram pieces, that I kept in a small tin. I would be challenged to come up with my own template samples to share the next time we were together. What fun and simplier times.