Set Your Stamps Free

If you are a stamper there’s a good chance you have tons of stamps. Unlike our digital photos that take up a lot of virtual space, our stamps take up a lot of actual space.

There are several solutions for this.

One solution is to use acrylic stamps with acrylic block. Probably the premiere company for acrylic stamps is Close to My Heart (CTMH). Below is a photo of one of their stamp sets and a few acrylic blocks.

You can see there’s a few acrylic stamps stuck on a plastic sheet. You peel these off and stick them on an acrylic block. Great theory, but here’s the problem, acrylic does not hold ink very well. I’ve never gotten the quality images I got from rubber stamps. I know there are people that love them, but I don’t. There are advantages to the acrylic stamps though. Space is the obvious one. Another pro acrylic is they are clear, so you really know exactly where your stamped image will be going. Awesome. Also you can place several stamps on the same block and stamp many images at the same time. Wonderful.

Well, there’s a way to get all those benefits from your rubber stamps. Release them from their wooden blocks and set them free. This is not a project for the faint of heart. It's very time consuming. I’m going to show you how to do that today.

You’ll need:

-A Stamp Set – I suggest one you’re willing to experiment with
-Double Sided Sticky Sheet (Stampin Up has 12 x 12 sheets)
-Aleene’s Tack-It Over & Over
-Empty CD Cases – I used Memorex

You’ll be removing the rubber stamp from the foam backer and the wooden block. It's a terrifying thought. I was afraid of doing this, but the stamped image is fine without the foam.

Here's the process--

1 - Remove the stamp from the foam and wooden block
2 - Apply double sided tape to back of rubber stamp
3 - Remove stamp image sticker from rubber block
4 - Apply stamp sticker to back of stamp
5 - Apply Aleene's Tack-It Over and Over

With the stamp removed you'll now apply double stick tape. I recommend very good Sticky Strip Sheet tape. You can do this project without this applying the image sticker on the rubber stamp, but I wanted to be able to see what the image is.

Applying the Sticky Strip/Double Sided Tape.

Cut the double sided tape close to the stamp.



Remove the backing.



Peel the image sticker off the wooden block.

Now apply a thin layer of Aleen's Tack-It Over and Over, then let it dry until clear. It will be very tacky. If it's too tacky and won't release from the acrylic stamps easily when you're using them, you can "blot" it a couple of times on a piece of cloth to pick up some lint.

It can get pretty crazy and mixed up when I'm really getting crafty, so I figured I would want to have something to record what stamps went with what set. I stamped the images on a paper cut to the portions of the inside of the cd case and I printed the set name inside using my printer. Here's what I ended up with.

Here's sort of a before and after. The "before" is the crazy mess behind.

There you have it.

Now in cleaning out my stamp sets I came across a few I don't want to keep. I'll listing them on eBay. Come have a look. There few there now and more to follow. I tried to insert a link here, but it wouldn't work . . . .here's the address:
http://shop.ebay.com/kid_curry1/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1