If you use high density foam and find yourself making lots of scraps, why not turn it into something cute?
Welcome to HMCraft, today I’m going to help you clean up all that unused foam.
If you’re like me, you have a lot of foam laying around from various craft projects, shipping and mailing needs, or just because you thought it was interesting and didn’t want to throw it out. In stores recently, I’ve seen thick foam sponges with painted or printed designs that look really cute. So let’s make our own foam squishies out of these scraps - something that can have whatever design you want, and are relatively easy to make.
As for me, I also had some dark T-shirt transfer sheets that were sitting unused, and that’s what we’re going to use to create the image that’s going on these squishies. Just make sure that you use the sheets that are for dark t-shirts, as this makes them opaque and not show the color of the foam behind. The instructions said to NOT reverse the image, which makes your life easier if you’re using text, but mine were just illustrations of favorite video game characters.
Now, at first I was trying to make these be round squishies, but quickly learned that there was no easy way of getting a perfectly round circle with the tools I had at hand, so instead I turned these into hexagons.
I printed and cut out each of my designs and peeled the backing off. It’s here that you can really see how flexible this material is, and why it works great for fabrics. Now you might be saying, “those transfers are iron-on. How do you know it won’t melt or burn the foam on contact?"
Well most of the foam that I have is ‘high density foam’, which says it’s made from 100% Polyurethane. Polyurethane doesn’t have a melting point because it’s a thermosetting polymer, so when it’s made it becomes irreversibly hard. However, it will ignite and burn under extreme heat, which seems to be between 300-400 degrees Celsius, which is between 500 and 700 degrees Fahrenheit here in the US. Now a typical clothing iron at its highest setting will get up to temperatures well under that, so I think it’s safe to say it’s ok to iron foam.
So next I placed the material on top of some scrap foam, and found a nice flat space to work with my iron. With some parchment paper between the iron and the material, I held the heat long enough for it to bond to the foam, but always kept the iron in motion with slow swipes.
Next, I got my a fabric cutter, or hand rotary tool, and used a straight-edge to cut along-side. After that, I ripped the stray bits that were left behind, and you could consider the squishy done at this point. But I also wanted to add a back to make it a more complete item.
I lined it up and repeated the ironing, resulting in a nice little hexagonal toy. I made a few more and they’re so cute how they all fit together.
I had some fun with the different color variations I had in foam too. Some were yellow with time, so that became a Pikachu. Some were green, and that became Yoshi. Basically, it was just a fun little experiment, and now I have a way to use some of the piles of foam I’ve kept for no reason. It can be a fun giveaway for swag, fidget toy for the kids, or, I don’t know, maybe a freebie for online orders?
For those interested, I have some completed foam squishies for sale on my Etsy.