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My boss gave me two sets and an ink pad that she bought at a party like 7 years ago. Brand new, never even opened.
I looked at them when she gave them to me, but it wasn't until I opened them later to get a closer look, that they don't have wood mounts! They are just on really thick foam. I take it I am supposed to use them as is, that they don't need wood mounts?
One set is called birdhouse mini and the other is swags, sprays, 'n stuff. While I am new to SU! this year, I have been stamping for about 8 years myself. It's interesting to me see just how much the style has changed just over the last few years.
She even had the little stamping techniques leaflet still in the bag and that was the most interesting to see! The style of the stamps and the examples in the leaflet are very country-ish. And you know I can remember buying the sort of style stamps, too when I first started stamping.
I just thought it was interesting to see the style from just a few years back and how different was!
I still have a couple foam mounted sets. They were less expensive than the wood mounted, and I was just starting out when I bought them. I think I have 2 that I tried to sell on e-bay with no luck.
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“Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else.” – Fred Rogers
I have several alphabet sets on foam from way back when. I am planning on mounting them to wood when I can find an inexpensive source for wood blocks.
There are few other on foam that I'd also like to remount. The other I let my DD use to stamp with!
I also have two sets that are foam mounted. I want to remount them one of these days, because I love them both -- can't remember the names but one has the Fa-la-la-la-la stamp and the cute lamp post & carolers, and the other is the silhouette manger set.
I know a lot of companies went to unmounted/acrylic, and I have quite a few -- but I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE my SU! sets on wood.
Addicted to Rubber Stamps does have the wood blocks - for right now. They're listed as in stock right now, but looks like they're being discontinued. I purchased several of various sizes for SU sets where I wanted the picture and the saying on different blocks (if they were originally supposed to be together). Sometimes, when splitting the image from the saying, the saying is too long to mount on the end of the image block, so I bought another block to mount the saying.
On remounting foam to wood: I had severals alphabets and a few others that I mounted. Oh, and the best thing about this is as long as the foam isn't too thick, the 1" block still fits in the channel boxes for the Alphabets.
As for the wood, I did two things. For the Alpha's, I went to Michael's and bought the 1", 3/4" and 1/2" square pieces. They come in bags of 4-25 depending on size. You can also double-mount them this way like the current Alpha's we buy now. You can usually mount a regular alpha on a 1" or 3/4" which come 13 to a bag for $2. I then inked the foam stamp with Basic Black and centered it as best as I could on the top of the wood block (so I wouldn't have to try to read calligraphy backward to figure out what letter it was, LOL)
Then for the rubber part, I just used a whole bunch of straight razors (you can get a box of 100 from Home Depot for about $5) and shaved off most of the foam, trimmed the rubber with my scissors like we do now, then used the really thick tacky glue (pink bottle, I think). The razors only last for about 1 or 2 and then they really kill your fingers trying to cut the foam off so I figured they were cheap enough to just use what I needed.
For the larger stamps, my hubby went out an bought a 1x3x8" piece of wood and cut it in 2" sections. I then used the Dremel to shave off the corners and sanded it a bit.
Yes, it was a lot of work but I'm glad. I can actually use them now. All in all, I rescued 3 alphabets and 2 stamp sets for about $20-$30.
I also had a couple sets on the thick foam. They were awful to stamp with I would get ink on the sides and in turn get it on my cards. Just recently I peeled them off the foam, trimmed close to the image and mounted them on static cling used for "unmounted" stamps. They stamp great now! I signed up as a TAC demo in Feb of this year, that was the first I had heard of the "unmounted" stamps, I love them!
i got some old sets today...
