Unmounting Wooden Stamps

Hello Scrappers and Friends! Hope all is well with you guys. Today I'm going to share with you how to unmount your wooden stamps and how I store them. I always told myself that I would never unmount my beautiful wooden stamps, but I'm running out of space and I think making my stamps cling stamps will make me use them more...hopefully. So here is what I did.

First I peeled off the red rubber from the foam and block and just threw them into a container. The wooden part of it I saved for now if it had a sticker on it of the image itself because I have a plan to use the sticker later. Once I got quite a few stamps off the blocks I started placing them on some EZ mount sheets. I purchased mine at scrapbooking-warehouse.com. They seem to be the cheapest place around because it can get expensive. Make sure the back of the stamp is cleaned off pretty well and doesn't have big chunks on the back because it can cause imperfections when you use the stamp. Also if you have trouble getting the stamp to come off the foam thats on the wooden block, just place it in the microwave for a few seconds, I hear that is suppose to help. When you go to place the stamp onto the EZ mount foam, place the back of it onto the sticky side of the foam. There will be a shiny cling side and a sticky side. So I did all that and placed my stamps all over the sheets, next up was to cut around them. A friend suggested a hot knife. So I bought one and tried it out, I think I need more practice. Since the hot knife wasn't working well for me I just used a craft knife and just glided it around the stamps very carefully. I then peeled off the back paper and it was ready to use!

Now the way I store them is how I store my other cling/clear stamps, Avery Elle storage pockets. Only this time instead of using acetate sheets to cling the stamps to while storing them a friend suggested to use packing tape and a sheet of paper. It worked and it was so much cheaper! Once I got the sheet all taped up I sorted the stamps by theme or set, sometime they were just random ones. Then I place the folders into photo boxes that you get pretty much at any craft store, which fit great! The size pockets I normally buy are the Large ones, but I think I'll have to invest into some extra large ones due to taller stamps. I also ordered those at scrapbooking-warehouse.com, they come 50 to a pack. Then once I get all of them done, I'll go through and label the pockets. I take the sticker off the wooden block that I saved earlier and stick that on the back of the sheet I placed the stamp on so I have a reference as to what stamp is there.

Hope this helped any of you that are wanting to unmount your wooden stamps. I was afraid I would regret it but so far I haven't. Main reason I decided to do umount them is due to having such a small area and wanting more storage. Also I heard that when you unmount them the image looks clearer than if it was on wood. I'm hoping to do a video showing how to unmount stamps as well, so watch for the video on my YouTube channel. Thanks and I hope you all have a splendid crafty time!