Monday, January 14, 2008

Quick demo of unmounting a stamp

I've been participating in a thread on splitcoast about unmounting stamps, and I've mentioned several times that I stamp an index on the back of my EZ Mount foam with StazOn ink before mounting the stamp on the EZ Mount. Photos were requested, so I thought I'd post them here as well.

Before the first photo, I stamped the bunny (and the rest of the set too) on the non-sticky side of the EZ Mount while the stamps were still mounted on their original wood mounts. Then I cleaned the stamps with StazOn Cleaner. Next I lifted a little corner of the rubber with my fingernail and hoped that the rubber would pull right off without a lot of goo on the back. I got lucky with this set - it did. Sometimes I have to use some Goo Gone to remove sticky stuff before I can continue.

I'm definitely not a hand model! And this is my seven-year-old's very favorite stamp in the world, which may explain why the poor bunny is so stained. Or maybe we're just stamping slobs!

Anyhow, here's what happens next.

1. Bunny's bare rubber sitting next to the indexed EZ Mount foam.
2. I've cut the bunny-indexed foam away from the rest of the set and now I'm holding it so that I can get a view of both sides to try to line the rubber up with the image as closely as possible.
3. Just another view of the lining-up process.

4. Bunny rubber is stuck down to the sticky side of the EZ Mount.
5. I've cut around the rubber. Be sure to look at the rubber side when you're doing this!
6. Newly-mounted bunny on the acrylic block ready to stamp!

It is definitely a bit more work to mount the stamps this way with the index on the foam, but I sure do like being able to see the image through the block. Now it's not always lined up absolutely perfectly with the rubber on the other side, but usually close enough. Next time I take some pictures, I'll show you how I line up stamps on the block so that I can almost always get away without using a Stamp-a-ma-jig (which used to be my most-used tool).

11 comments:

~Denise Lynn~ said...

Very interesting, thanks for sharing the how-to! :)

Dawn♥ said...

OH wow I was wondering how to do this. I need to do some of my stamps this way. Thanks for the tutorial!

April Hall said...

That's really neat, I never would have thought to stamp the back!

blah said...

Thanks for showing this. I've unmounted my stamps but didn't stamp the EZ Mount first. I think I'm going to do this with any other stamps I get before I put them on EZ Mount.

Cassie said...

Thanks for sharing this! I am in the process of unmounting my stamps too. How are you storing them? Hubby and I are in a great debate over the best way to do this

Maren said...

Thanks for the tip. I have never used the EZ mount before.

Erin... said...

Thanks for the tutorial good info to know!

KimmieKrafts said...

Thanks sooo much for sharing!! This is exactly what I needed to see.

Amy said...

I just found your blog! What great effort you put our for us to share your knowledge! My friend and I were looking for nugget box templates and we found the mother load on SCS in your post! I couldn't believe all the work you have done! Wow!

I have a question about your unmounted stamps. Are you are a demonstrator and do you demonstrate with ummounted stamps? Do you customers mind? Just curious. Oh, and is your ezmount foam or the thin non-foam stuff? I have the cling film and I use that for unmounting if the foam comes off nicely with the rubber. So far I have only unmounted my non-SU stuff.

Thanks for you great info. I am adding you to my google reader. Can't wait to see what is next! :)

Nancy B said...

Don't use just love Unmounted Stamps?
I know I do. Saves so much space.

I just started indexing my stamps about 8 months ago. Before that I haven't try it.

Love the way you now store your Stamps and the labling that you have done too. I might have to do this with mine TAC stamp sets.

Christine said...

Does the Stazon interfere with the cling ability? Particularly with stamps that stamp an opaque/solid image