Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Unmouting Rubber Stamps


Because it's Teaching Tuesday on Sisterhood of Scrap and I'm the sister of the week, I'm sharing a little organizational thing that has really helped me! Feel free to ask any questions you have!

OK, so this wasn't the quickest of projects, but I can't tell you how happy I am now that I've finally done it. I admit that I don't have the largest collection of stamps, but I found I wasn't even using the ones I did have because they were thrown in a box on a shelf. Out sight is out of mind for me! I knew other people at work had been talking about unmouting and organizing their stamps, so I decided it was my turn.


The good thing is that there's not a lot required for this job other than a few products and some time! So, we'll start with what you'll need:

All you need to do is to gently pull the rubber part off the stamp. If you have any trouble, put the stamp with the wood block in the microwave for about 20 seconds and that should help it come off easily. There were a few stamps where I left the foam that it was mounted on the block on with the rubber part of the stamp simply because I didn't want to destroy the stamp to get it off. It really makes no difference.

OK, once the stamp is off, all you're going to do is stick it onto the sheet of EZMount. You'll know which side because one is crazy sticky and that's the side you want! You're just going to cut around the stamp relavtively closely so that when you go to use it later, you have a sense of the size you're stamping. Once you've cut it out, you're done! The other side of the EZMount is cling and you can now use it on any acrylic block! Easy Peasy!

There are a couple of things you should know before you start. Depending on how many stamps you have, this could take a while. I don't have a ton of stamps, so I did mine in a day (and that included catalaloguing them by stamping them on paper in categories so I can easily find what I have when I need something). The other thing is that because the EZMount is so sticky, you will definitely have to clean off your scissors once in a while!

Other than that, there's really not much to it! Have fun getting organized!

Cheers,
Colleen

8 comments:

EquineSpirit said...

That's an AWESOME idea!!

Tina said...

Wow, I love your stamp storage idea! I know what I'm doing this weekend!

Sarah Coggins said...

Great idea! I have basically quit buying mounted rubber stamps because they take up so much space. This is a wonderful way to get around that. tfs! :)

scrappermimi said...

I store mine the same way! Works great!

Linda said...

Looks great! I'm still trying to decide if I should do that with mine or not.

Unknown said...

How cool to have them like this, just being able to pull them out and gaze at their wonderfulness!!!

Colleen said...

I dont care about the scrapping post. Just leaving my tag that I was here looking. 8)
George

Aimeslee Winans said...

Congrats to you Colleen, great news! And, kudos on the tutorial. I have a tip about the stickiness on the scissors (I've done this job before, LOL): if you rub some embossing ink on the scissor blades before cutting, it keeps them unstiocky longer. Just re-apply the embossing ink periodically as you work. I use Ranger Embossing Ink in the little bottle. It's blue-tinted and helps me know that I covered the blades well.