Storing Clear and Unmounted Rubber Stamps Tutorial

Good Evening!

I would like to say thanks for the lovely comments I've had about my newly refurbed craft room. It has always been a joy to work in there, and I know I'm very lucky to have a room of my own. I've often joked that if I had a gas hob and a shower in there I would never need to leave my room!

I'm going to be showing you how I did the lettering and vinyl decal over the next week or so, but I had a question as to exactly how I store my clear stamps after I posted a piccy of my CD's which you can see here, so I thought I would do a kind of tutorial to show you exactly how I do this.

 Here's my folder where I keep all my images of my clear and unmounted rubber stamps. I try and keep this {as much as I can} in occasion categories such as Christmas, girly, masculine, flowers, sentiments etc. The folder allows me to add new sheets within a category whenever I get new stamps. It was my aim once I'd got this system up and running to stamp and categorise them as soon as they were bought, and get them into the CD's , but with the best laid plans this hasn't happened, and at the moment I must have about 100 packs of clear stamps to sort categorise and store! So this is how my system works.

 I take my set of stamps, and decide which category it will fit most. In this case I'm storing the 'Born to Shop Go Green' stamp set, so in this case it will go in my girly section. I'm using the lid of an A5 storage box as an acrylic block, placing all my stamps onto this to stamp onto a piece of white card. I used to stamp them with an acrylic block, but found placing, inking stamping and cleaning took so long, it's much quicker this way and just as effective, after all you only need to make out the image, it doesn't have to be perfect. I use a dye based black ink so it dries quickly too.

When I use a lid instead of an acrylic block, I make sure that I press down within the lid to get the best impression possible.

If some of the images don't come out fully, it doesn't bother me, after all it's only as a reference point to remember what stamps I have. Can you imagine trying to find a particular stamp with all your CD's on a rack together - it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack!

I use CD cases to store all my stamps. I get my cases from a local printers for about 20p each, but you can also get them from Tesco {and other leading Supermarkets, I'm sure!} in packs of 10, I usually pay about £3.50 here. Please note: You need to get the normal size CD cases, not the jewel, slim CD cases as these are not thick enough to store even Clear stamps and therefore will not close. Remove the inner section where you normally would store the CD by prizing at the spine edge carefully. This can be discarded {unless you can find another use for it of course!}.

Once my stamping is complete, I 'stick' the clear stamps {or unmounted rubber on ezymount} onto the inside of the cases. This is why I have the stamped record of the image in an easy to find way. Both sides of the CD case can be covered with clear stamps, meaning that depending on the size of the set, you can group some together. Rubber stamps on ezymount can only cover one side because of their thickness.

The stamped sheet is then given a number, and I also make labels with my Brother label printer to stick on the spine of the CD case. The CD's will be in numerical order on the shelf, but not necessarily in the folder as they will be put in their particular category.

 If the CD case only contains a particular stamp set then I will also write the name on the spine too.

Now, I hear you ask, what do I do with the lovely images printed onto acetate that illustrates the stamp set? Well, sometimes I cut to size so it will fit into the CD case, but usually I make a card from it!

I made this card using the acetate image of the topiary tree from the packaging, and fixed it to white glitter cardstock using red glitter brads. In fact all of this card is made with scraps! I LOVE making cards from scraps and recycled items! I made the sentiment panel on my laptop, as can you believe I must have about 500 sets of clear stamps, and I've counted 547 woodmounted stamps, and I HAVEN'T GOT a new home stamp?!! The mind boggles!

Supplies: Image: Topiary Tree from packaging of 'Born to Shop Go Green' Papers & Cardstock: Born to Shop Go Green A5 Paper Pack; Papermania Glitter Cardstock; Core'dinations black & white cardstock; Greeting: Made with fonts Accord light SF and LD Charming Bold.

Well, I really hope you found that truly helpful! I enjoyed doing it, and at least it was another stamp set confined to a CD case!