A warm welcome to all my visitors,

Thank you for taking the time to come and look at my blog, I really do appreciate it. I would love you to leave me a comment, even if it’s just to say Hi. It means I can come visit you!

All my designs are original, so copyrighted to me. If I have been inspired by someone elses work, I have named them in the post, and where able, I have provided a link.

Please feel free to use my designs for inspiration, I just ask you to credit me, and provide a link back to my blog.

Thanks, Shaz XX

Friday 11 January 2013

Unmounting Done!

Well, almost all done, to be truthful. It's taken almost the whole week, and apart from a few very large stamps which  I am leaving on their blocks, I'm done. I admit, I haven't done the Christmas stamps either, but they're packed away in a box, so out of sight, out of mind.

All in ring binders, sorted into categories, or manufacturer- Paper Artsy, Lavinia, Crafty Individuals, Tim Holtz,as there are a quite a few of theirs. I split up sets if they had words/sentiments etc, and there are folders for words/sentiment,and Quotes/definitions. I didn't buy all black folders by the way, I had loads in all sorts of colours (whatever was on offer somewhere!), I bought a couple of rolls of black Fablon from Wilkinsons (cheapest place I could find it), and covered the spines of all the folders.


All stamped onto a sheet, which I am going to scan in sometime in the future. For two reasons, one so I can re-print the sheets A5 size, and put in A5 folders so I can just flick through the pages, rather than get each folder out, and secondly, because what we have done is take photographs of each room/ hubbys power tools/computers etc, so we can see (and prove) what we have should we ever be in the unfortunate position of needing to make an insurance claim. I realised. looking at the binders, I could never actually prove what was in them like this, and can you imagine the difficulty I'd have trying to claim?
Where I know who made the stamp, I've recorded that with the image. I like to try & put that info in my posts, if I can. I know how often I've seen a stamped image, and wondered about the stamp- who made it/ where I can get it.
 A few people asked how I was doing this on last weeks WOYWW, so here's what I found in the process.
  Some stamps came away from the woodblock intact with rubber foam- Penny Black were good for this, and Stampendous. I like my stamps with the foam cushion, and all my u/m's are on it, so this saved me quite a bit of remounting. The foam clings well to the acrylic blocks too. Here is a Penny Black, fresh off the wood block, and on an acrylic block.

With Hero Arts, Stamps Happen and Judikins I found the rubber peeled away from the foam cleanly, so these I could re-mount on Kling-on.


 I had some stamps with no manufacturer name on the blocks, that were backed with a not very good quality foam, and these sort of peeled off ok, but did leave a bit of a residue on the stamp. But, as it wasn't too bad, and I was putting it onto Kling-on, I tried one to see whether or not it would affect the stamp. It stuck ok, and the image came out clean, so it seems a little isn't a problem, but obviously only if you are putting them onto foam. If you were going to use bare rubber, you'd have to get it all off.

The ones that seemed like I might get the whole thing off in one go, but was a bit too well stuck to the block, I microwaved. Depending on the size of the stamp, they took 8 -15 seconds to loosen the glue enough to peel the stamp off. I used the microwave on med high, and its an 800 watt oven. Mine has a dial, rather than digital, so you can't set it for seconds. I just put it on for a couple of minutes and watched the main oven clock to count the seconds.I started with 8, if it was still stuck I tried another 4 and so on. I think my microwave has had more use this week doing stamps than it had all last year, lol.

This rack used to be pretty much filled with my wood mounted stamps, lay on end like the large ones still on the top. This is the rubble sack full of the discarded wood mounts! So a definite space saver.


 Oh, and one final amusing bit. I was in WHSmiths the other day, and saw the Creativity magazine, with a set of free stamps on the front. What attracted me was the Globe stamp-always looking for good 'male' images. Didn't notice at the time(!), but what is on it? Yes, another blasted Thank You stamp!

4 comments:

Myrna said...

Shaz
Phew what a job. Well done.
Myrna

Anonymous said...

Super job Shaz and well done on getting through it all. When I did mine I saved some of the smaller blocks for attaching felt to and one or two of the larger ones for thwacking shrink plastic flat! The rest made great firewood :) Amazing how much space un-mounting those stamps saves. Love your new craft room :)
Lynn xx

MaggieC (Silvercrafter) said...

You are doing something that I truly hate with a passion. Sticky rubber cushioning is the bane of my life. I had done several sets of stamps, and ended up removing it all from every stamp. I mount mine temporarily on Clarity stamps and get a good image that way, far better than I ever got with the cushioning in place. By the way, I have noticed that a lot of the stamps I bought ages ago are coming back now but as polymer rather than rubber stamps. Have fun with your new Melt Pot. xx Maggie

Kyla said...

That is some serious organising, well done. Love the idea of photos for insurance purposes.....let's face it most insurers couldn't believe the cost of our craft stash we have build up!
Kyla

An End of an era

An end of an era

I write this with a broken heart, that only time can heal My beautiful, wonderful wifelet Shaz (Silverwolf) passed away peacefully in the ea...