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I have just spent about an hour reading up on here about unmounting your stamps from wood blocks. I am soooo confused. I have 100+ stamp sets. I can understand the convenience of clear stamps because you can see where you are stamping but how about the ones you unmount from the wood. You can't see where the image is going to be perfectly. Questions:
1. Do I or don't I unmount my 100+ wood set? (I don't mind the time it might take)
2. Would people still want to buy my old sets if I go and unmount them? I guess I would save all the wood blocks in baskets and put on top shelves. Same with clamshell cases.
3. How do they stay on the acrylic block?
4. How do you see what you are stamping with the rubber from the unmounted wood sets?
Any info or input you can give me would be great. I was just looking for ideas on better organizing my papers and stumbled upon this topic and started reading.
1. Do I or don't I unmount my 100+ wood set? (I don't mind the time it might take)
>>> Lisa .. almost all my stamps were wood mounted. Now I only have a few left only because I've been too lazy to change them out. But it doesn't really take a huge amount of time to remove them from the blocks. Just a little effort. I did mine while watching a movie.
2. Would people still want to buy my old sets if I go and unmount them? I guess I would save all the wood blocks in baskets and put on top shelves. Same with clamshell cases.
>>> These days I know that I prefer stamps that are not mounted so I sure there is a market out there for your unmounted stamps.
3. How do they stay on the acrylic block?
>>> I use two methods. a) most of my stamps are now mounted on cling, so they stick to the acrylic blocks no problem and b) recently I found a product called Tack and Peel by Tsukineko. It is a reusable cling sheet that is very sticky on one side so that you can apply it to a wood or acrylic block. The other side is slightly sticky like cling and the unmounted stamp will stick right to it. I really like this product as I don't have to re-mount my stamps on cling, which means they take up less space. But it is pricey at around $10.00 for a 5x4 sheet. so I only bought it when I had 50% coupons. I save wood block and now have a variety of sizes that I can use with my unmounted stamps.
4. How do you see what you are stamping with the rubber from the unmounted wood sets?
>>> since I am blind in one eye, I have found that my stamp-a-ma-jig & I are real close. I use it with all my stamping because I have no depth perception so someone else may be able to offer you something on this one.
I only have an answer to one of the questions lol.
But I personally wouldnt buy stamps that are unmounted. Mainly because I wouldnt want to risk the stamp being incorrectly unmounted and stamping uneven or what ever.
I hope I'm doing this right, but here is the message from Anna Wight, SweetMissDaisy. IF this doesn't work, please go look at her gallery for her organization pics.
She left her woodmounted as is, but redid her storage to better store her woodmounted, unmounted and clear. I personally unmounted a bunch of sets. Pros: very great space saving Cons: I used Aleene's tack it over and over...helped keep them sticky, but regardless, you can't see through the rubber, just like you can't see through wood. I think the resale value of unmounted is slightly less than mounted. Depends on if you are determined to sell them down the road or if you are flexible on this point. Cons: Took hours of time, and although it saved space, it didn't really help my personal storage organization as I had to come up with another way to store (cd cases). In hindsight I would leave the wood, and use Anna's method to combine/store sets. Just a thought...
PS...a good thread is the one from the other day about combining sets..is it heresy? (or sin, I can't remember). Good luck!
From Anna:
I did it last fall, and am SO HAPPY I DID!!
Here are the photos/info I posted in my gallery:
Saving Space! (1) - Anna Wight by SweetMissDaisy - Cards and Paper Crafts at Splitcoaststampers
Saving Space! (2) - Anna Wight by SweetMissDaisy - Cards and Paper Crafts at Splitcoaststampers
Saving Space! (3) - Anna Wight by SweetMissDaisy - Cards and Paper Crafts at Splitcoaststampers
and more here:
Organizing... and dusting. - Sassy & Sweet Notes
Lisa,
I have a few of the same answers as Cara. I have just finished unmounting all my su sets. I haven't done the others yet, house mouse, amuse, etc. I don't think I will--esp house mouse the coloring on the blocks is great.
I finally went to bare rubber stored in cd cases, I have double sided tape in the cd holders and use tack and peel on my blocks.
As for resale value, I find with all the space I am saving that even if I am not totally in love with a set I can keep it because I have so much space now. I too am looking to buy unmounted now.
As for seeing the image, you can still use a stamp-a-ma-jig for positioning. I have to say I love unmounted!
__________________ Pia 2024 Scrapbook goals April 16/10 layouts YTD 91/120 Check out my gallery
Thank you so much. Someone actually posted your links up top and I emailed myself your website for reference. So you left all your wood mounted still on wood but just combined sets into cases. Did you use SU clamshells or another brand? They all look the same size. Would you possibly be able to email me a few more pics? Maybe what some set looks like inside the cases. I want to do this right and I am liking your set-up.
Hi Lisa,
Sorry, no time to take more photos beyond what's already posted. Also, in the description on the photos in my gallery, I give details on the containers. Hope that helps! Oh, and there are more details here, too.
I unmounted all my stamps this past summer, and unmount anything that I buy that is wood mounted. Its a matter of preference whether someone will buy unmounted stamps. I personally won't buy mounted stamps, unless I absolutely have to have the image and it only comes on wood, but that doesn't happen very often. I also won't buy a mounted stamp that I have to pay to have shipped. No sense paying to ship something I'm going to get rid of. I use TIO&O on all my unounted rubber stamps. I generally take my stamps down to the bare rubber, but will leave the foam on if its in good shape, but again I prefer them bare rubber. I don't find it too much of a problem placing my rubber stamps with the clear block, but do use my stamp-a-ma-jig if I want to make absolutely sure of the placement for any stamp. My stamps use to take up almost a whole big book case. They now only take up one shelf in that book case since unmounting them. That's a huge space savings in my little 600 sq ft house.
I love it. They stack super nicely and it is so easy to see what stamps I have. Before they were stacked in their clamshell cases, 3 deep and 1 1/2 feet high, it was a pain to dig through them. I seperated most of mine out of their sets also. Some I kept together if I couldn't or didn't have enough stamps that would fit in one container under one theme.
Glad you like it!! I love it, too!! Soooo much easier to find, and see, what I'm looking for. And I love how much "neater" my shelves look now, too!! Mine used to be similar to yours ... 11 sets high, two stacks deep, four stacks wide, per shelf. ZOIKS!
1. Do I or don't I unmount my 100+ wood set? (I don't mind the time it might take)
Go for it!!!
2. Would people still want to buy my old sets if I go and unmount them? I guess I would save all the wood blocks in baskets and put on top shelves. Same with clamshell cases.
If people want to put them back on wood, they can always permanently glue them back on to wood with the foam (yes, they sell that-not sure who but I have seen it while I was internet browsing. And truthfully, if someone really wants the set, they will buy it.
3. How do they stay on the acrylic block?
I use ezMount for all my rubber stamps - not the clear ones. It provides the foam needed to help insure an even image when using rubber. One side sticks to the rubber and the other is clingy, so it sticks to the acrylic block and sticks to the CD/DVD cases I use to store them in.
4. How do you see what you are stamping with the rubber from the unmounted wood sets?
My stamps are trimmed closely so the image is outlined so to speak, so when I stamp, I have a general idea of where I want to put things. As for sentiments...I know what they say because I stamp the back of the case with the image using StazOn.
What do I love about it...
1 - space saved is amazing!!!
2 - when I go down a friends house to stamp, I just load up my CD carrier with the sets I want to take and voila - nice and easy.
3 - I can have a ton of sets on my desk and it doesn't look messy!
FYI...I did keep my stamps together with their original sets...I am not a believer in separating them - but that is just me. I need to charge my camera but I will try to load a picture a bit later. I have about 300 CD cases and 23 DVD cases. I have mine stored in the modular closet storage from target - the shoe caddy. I have cut foam board - cheap from Walmart - out to fit in the back of each 'cubby' to make sure that my CD's are pushed forward.
__________________ ...I'm just meandering through life; trying to have some fun along the way!!!
Hi Lisa! I'm a convert to unmounted rubber and I LOVE IT!!! I haven't gone to bare rubber, but I love love love my unmounted sets.
1. Do I or don't I unmount my 100+ wood set? (I don't mind the time it might take)
Get your hands on acrylic blocks and unmounted sets. You can buy some fairly inexpensive cling-mount stamps at Michael's and Hobby Lobby. Some folks love the feel of the wood in their hands. If that's what you enjoy most about this hobby, don't take it away from yourself! If you can live without that wood feel, go for it. Stampin Up's acrylic blocs are very similar to their wooden blocks with the inverse curves along all four sides of the acrylic blocks. I have the smallest one on order, since I can't find one that small anywhere else. (My tiny little stamps are hard to stamp evenly with a too-big block, so I broke down and ordered the smallest one.) I'm not picky about the feel of the wood or the acrylic. Space-saving and organization were my main motivating factors. Plus, since my stamps are trimmed closely, I liked the idea of seeing through the block. I still use the stamp-a-ma-jig for precise placement, of course.
Another thing to consider is how you want to store your stamps. Do you want to separate the sets and store them in the containers mentioned above? Do you want to keep the sets together and just have an index binder of the images? I personally love that I can reach over to my two binders to find the image I want; one binder has each stamp set stamped and organized alphabetically by set name regardless of manufacturer & the second binder has each imaged stamped into appropriate categories. I just used cheap binders from the dollar store and printer paper with my 3-hole punch... It's simple to me and works great with the way my mind works. All my stamps are stored in standard sized cd cases in cd storage boxes I got at Walmart. I have around 100 sets and they fit into 3 of the storage boxes (20 cds/box).
I unmounted my wheels and stored them in the new SU dvd-size clear-mount storage cases. I use ATIOO and have found that it doesn't stay securely stuck to the SU cases... Must be a difference in the types of plastic used for the cd cases and SU's dvd cases. But I'm using my 'wheels' much more now than I was in the past!
2. Would people still want to buy my old sets if I go and unmount them? I guess I would save all the wood blocks in baskets and put on top shelves. Same with clamshell cases.
Personally, I look for unmounted or clear-mount sets to save me the trouble of having to unmount them myself. I don't care how well or how poorly it was done; as long as the rubber image itself isn't damaged, I can stamp with it with or without the foam cushion. I'm with cat_woman on refusing to pay to ship the heavy wood blocks that I don't want in the first place.
3. How do they stay on the acrylic block?
Like I said, the method I use is removing both the foam and rubber from the wood block. I remove the image sticker from the block and align it as best as I can to the back of the foam. The residual adhesive keeps the sticker stuck to the foam (unless its an old set - some of mine that are older than 5 years or so need some help with the sticker sticking to the foam; that's where the regular Aleene's Tacky Glue comes in handy). Then I put a very thin coat Aleene's Tack It Over and Over (ATIOO) on top of the sticker. You can find ATIOO at Michael's. I've looked but never saw it online or in Joann's or in Hobby Lobby. I'm sure it exists somewhere else in the universe besides Michael's, but I sure can't find it anywhere else.
4. How do you see what you are stamping with the rubber from the unmounted wood sets?
This is why I put the image sticker on the back of the foam then coat it with ATIOO.
I love having my entire stamp collection within reach and stored on top of my stamping table. And my index binders make it super easy to find what I'm looking for. Each set in my index is marked with which case number it's stored in. On the spines of the cd cases I numbered the set and write the name of the set (believe it or not sometimes I don't have to look up the set I want and actually remember its name!). Each cd case also has an image index on a piece of paper that stays in the case (like the liner notes of a music cd). Once I get the stamps (usually multiple sets) arranged in the case the way I want them, I ink them up and stamp the image sheet. It's like a mini game of Tetris! :-)
Basically, try to work the foam away from the rubber with the side of your thumb. If it won't budge or you're afraid you'll rip it, zap it in the microwave for a few seconds to 'soften' the adhesive and try again. Once you do a few you'll get the feel for it.
HTH
__________________ ~ Laura
I have CDO. It's like OCD, except all the letters are in order like they should be.
I am in purgatory with my collection as well, luckily I have a rather small collection (less than 50 sets) here is my chain of thought:
I have clear/cling stamp sets from at least 3 different brands and quite a bunch of wooden sets from SU. Many years ago I had put SU sets on cling foam for storage purposes but I wasn't really stamping much. Now that I have so many different brands of stamps, I really do not like that they are not stored nice and pretty. I used to keep my cling stamps in a binder but I never looked in there to make my cards because all my other stamps were in a box on my shelf. So the system not working if I don't even look at them. I have recently purchased couple sets of the SU storage cases to make them all look like the clear sets from SU. This makes me really excited and I would use the Aleens method to unmount. Only the cases are on back order til at least the end of the month. bummer. Now I am thinking of going with the stufftainers like the other links above. They have a thicker size to hold the wooded stamp sets and they are 8x10x1 inches so you can group sets to save space. The thin stufftainers are 8x10x.44 (or something like that) and they are perfect for the clear/cling stamp sets and again because they are larger than a cd/dvd case you can group them. Going with the stufftainers, to me, means uniformity without the work of unmounting.
I hope all this advice doesn't overwhelm you. Check out the stufftainers: Site
As to backorders at SU for the cases...I can make a guess that they will be in before the end of the month. I had a punch I ordered the first week of Feb that they said was backordered until the end of March. My demo had it on her doorstep on Mar 2.
I would have a problem if my stamps were stored in two different systems too. If I needed to come up with a new system, the SU cases or the Univenture binders would be my first investigations.
I found the Stufftainers at Archivers last weekend. So here is what I got, my 20 or so wood mounted sets are now in the thicker Stufftainers while my clear mount stamps reside in the storage cases from SU! While they are not organized THE SAME, the stufftainers hold a ton and sooo much less room than all the SU clam shells. Plus no unmounting, less work more stamping! Good luck.
I have some clear stamps that I bought that are permanently mounted on clear blocks. Does anyone know how to get these off and what do I do with them after I take them off the clear blocks? Are they just like clear stamps or are they sticky? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Lisa! I'm a convert to unmounted rubber and I LOVE IT!!! I haven't gone to bare rubber, but I love love love my unmounted sets.
1. Do I or don't I unmount my 100+ wood set? (I don't mind the time it might take)
Get your hands on acrylic blocks and unmounted sets. You can buy some fairly inexpensive cling-mount stamps at Michael's and Hobby Lobby. Some folks love the feel of the wood in their hands. If that's what you enjoy most about this hobby, don't take it away from yourself! If you can live without that wood feel, go for it. Stampin Up's acrylic blocs are very similar to their wooden blocks with the inverse curves along all four sides of the acrylic blocks. I have the smallest one on order, since I can't find one that small anywhere else. (My tiny little stamps are hard to stamp evenly with a too-big block, so I broke down and ordered the smallest one.) I'm not picky about the feel of the wood or the acrylic. Space-saving and organization were my main motivating factors. Plus, since my stamps are trimmed closely, I liked the idea of seeing through the block. I still use the stamp-a-ma-jig for precise placement, of course.
Another thing to consider is how you want to store your stamps. Do you want to separate the sets and store them in the containers mentioned above? Do you want to keep the sets together and just have an index binder of the images? I personally love that I can reach over to my two binders to find the image I want; one binder has each stamp set stamped and organized alphabetically by set name regardless of manufacturer & the second binder has each imaged stamped into appropriate categories. I just used cheap binders from the dollar store and printer paper with my 3-hole punch... It's simple to me and works great with the way my mind works. All my stamps are stored in standard sized cd cases in cd storage boxes I got at Walmart. I have around 100 sets and they fit into 3 of the storage boxes (20 cds/box).
I unmounted my wheels and stored them in the new SU dvd-size clear-mount storage cases. I use ATIOO and have found that it doesn't stay securely stuck to the SU cases... Must be a difference in the types of plastic used for the cd cases and SU's dvd cases. But I'm using my 'wheels' much more now than I was in the past!
2. Would people still want to buy my old sets if I go and unmount them? I guess I would save all the wood blocks in baskets and put on top shelves. Same with clamshell cases.
Personally, I look for unmounted or clear-mount sets to save me the trouble of having to unmount them myself. I don't care how well or how poorly it was done; as long as the rubber image itself isn't damaged, I can stamp with it with or without the foam cushion. I'm with cat_woman on refusing to pay to ship the heavy wood blocks that I don't want in the first place.
3. How do they stay on the acrylic block?
Like I said, the method I use is removing both the foam and rubber from the wood block. I remove the image sticker from the block and align it as best as I can to the back of the foam. The residual adhesive keeps the sticker stuck to the foam (unless its an old set - some of mine that are older than 5 years or so need some help with the sticker sticking to the foam; that's where the regular Aleene's Tacky Glue comes in handy). Then I put a very thin coat Aleene's Tack It Over and Over (ATIOO) on top of the sticker. You can find ATIOO at Michael's. I've looked but never saw it online or in Joann's or in Hobby Lobby. I'm sure it exists somewhere else in the universe besides Michael's, but I sure can't find it anywhere else.
4. How do you see what you are stamping with the rubber from the unmounted wood sets?
This is why I put the image sticker on the back of the foam then coat it with ATIOO.
I love having my entire stamp collection within reach and stored on top of my stamping table. And my index binders make it super easy to find what I'm looking for. Each set in my index is marked with which case number it's stored in. On the spines of the cd cases I numbered the set and write the name of the set (believe it or not sometimes I don't have to look up the set I want and actually remember its name!). Each cd case also has an image index on a piece of paper that stays in the case (like the liner notes of a music cd). Once I get the stamps (usually multiple sets) arranged in the case the way I want them, I ink them up and stamp the image sheet. It's like a mini game of Tetris! :-)
This is EXACTLY what I do. I was nervous when I first unmounted all my wood sets years ago, but once I did it, my only regret was that I didn't do it sooner.
I prefer unmounted for so many reasons, and would go out of my way to find sets that are already unmounted (especially if they are indexed on the back with the sticker on original foam, or with StazOn on EZMount). There is absolutely a market for your unmounted sets, and it's growing by leaps and bounds.
Mine are all stored in CD cases, or if they're the newer SU unmounted stamps, in the SU dvd cases.
Unmounting, going clear or staying with wood
Unmount stamps
