Sunday, March 30, 2014

Storing handcarved stamps, what to do what to do?

Hi Crafters,

I've been doing a lot of hand carved stamps here lately and the drawer that I keep them in is getting very crowded.  I needed a way to keep them a bit more organized, so I decided today was the day. Here is my current inventory.



The majority of my stamps were made to use in my art journal or on tags so some of them are fairly large.  When stamping with them, I have to make sure I have pretty good pressure all around to get a good stamped image.  Sometimes that can be challenging because of the size of the stamp.  I decided the best way to do this is to make the stamp temporarily mountable for acrylic blocks, plus this will help with my storage idea. 

First I applied a thin layer of Aleenes Tack it Over & Over glue on the backs of the stamps (this will also protect the writing on the backs too, I write the name of the stamp and when it was carved). 



While waiting for the glue to dry I pulled out a few page protectors and the cover of a cardstock stack that I will cut to fit inside the page protector to give it some stability. I'm sure any kind heavy stock paper or chipboard would do.






















When the glue is dry its clear and tacky.  The stamps are ready to  be stored on the page protector sheets until there needed.  Now that I'm able to mount stamps on my larger acrylic blocks it will be easier to get a crisp stamp image with no stamp movement.  By the way I plan  on doing the above steps for my red rubber unmounted stamps.


 I ran out of page protectors and just used the plastic from some stickers packs that I had (which is another idea if page protectors are not an option). The stamps have just the right amount of tackiness, the stamps stay put and are very easy to remove from the both the acrylic block and the page protector.



 Look how nice they all fit in the drawer now, nice and neat! (I thought about putting them in a binder, but the stamps are too heavy)
  


I hope I've given you an idea for your unmounted or carved stamps.  Thanks for stopping by. 

Until the next blog...enjoy!

Carol

















3 comments:

  1. Wow, those are some great stamps! Great inspiration for me to try something different with my own carving. Thanks!

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    1. Hi Tracey, thank you. I didn't realize there were so many until I decided to organize them. I'd love to see a post of what you come up with.

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    2. Hi Carol. You can find my first ones (apart from alphabets) here: http://tracywoodsford.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/29-faces-crossing-finish-line.html
      And thanks for visiting :)

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