Cling stamp clean-up?

[GwennieJo]

Yesterday my first set of clear acrylic stamps arrived (Stampedous Perfectly Clear "Window Box" set - love it!!) and after fiddling a bit I made a nice card using my Jet Black Stazon and watercolors. I have a couple of questions for those of you that use clear acrylic stamps frequently...

1) What kind of ink works the best? I tried plain black pigment which seemed to dry pretty quickly on its own but then bled when I used my markers and watercolors. Should I emboss? I used Stazon but had to ink it several times to get a nice smooth image.

2) How the heck do you clean the stamp? Do you leave the die on the block and clean it that way? Do you take it off? If you take it off, how do you keep from getting ink all over your fingers?

3) Will Stazon cleaner hurt acrylic stamps? Anyone know?

I'd love any help/advice/ideas anyone can offer me...

-Gwen

[Ireland]

I am impatiently still waiting for my first clear stamp purchase to arrive in the mail - so I can't help you there, but am interested to hear what others say!!

I do know that Staz-on CLEANER will "craze" or "star" acrylic blocks... so if the cleaner is OK for the stamps - just don't clean them while on the block.
Although I'm not sure how you would clean them off the block....

Not much help am I?? ;)

[GwennieJo]

Oooo good to know about Stazon cleaner on the acrylic blocks, I didn't know that. Thanks.

Hopefully someone will have more help for us...

-Gwen

[Mahloumel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GwennieJo

2) How the heck do you clean the stamp? Do you leave the die on the block and clean it that way? Do you take it off? If you take it off, how do you keep from getting ink all over your fingers?

I use UltraClean with a Double Scrubber to clean all my stamps, and I just leave my photopolymer and rubber unmounted stamps on the block as I clean and dry them. With the Stazon cleaner, to protect your blocks you could blot the stamp off on a small cloth or something to get the loose ink off, then peel the stamp off and use the STazon cleaner on just the die.

As an aside, I've read that the UltraClean works better than the Stazon cleaner does for getting Stazon off of rubber stamps. I have no personal experience with this, nor do I remember anything about how well UltraClean gets STazon off of photopolymer stamps, but you may want to consider the UltraClean!