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The vinyl cling is nice, but the EZ mount stuff is really great too.
The reason I chose vinyl cling is because of cost, and that mounting takes a bit less time.
EZ mount is about $4/sheet. And you have to take the rubber off of the cushion and put it on the EZ mount cushion. I found that sticking on the vinyl on an unused/unmounted SU set is super easy.
That said, I'd love if SU sets came with EZ mount already on them- that'd be ideal!
The only issue I've had with the vinyl cling so far in my short clinging career was mounting a BG too hastily and got some air bubbles. I just took an exacto knife and carefully slit the bubbles so I could push the resulting flaps down. The bubbles interfered with the ability of the BG to cling to my block (the BG block with the sticker on it -- I'm too cheap to get a giant acrylic handle).
So, you take an unmounted SU stamp and don't remove the foam... just put it over the vinyl cling?
Yes or no. If you really like using the EZ Mount supplies, you would remove the rubber from the foam of the mounted OR unmounted SU stamp. It peels apart pretty easily in my opinion. Then you just have the rubber that you stick to the sticky side of the EZ Mount foam (and the other side of the foam has the vinyl cling already attached) and trim.
If you HAVE the vinyl cling already (from Michael's and other craft stores), you can just peel the paper backing off the unmounted SU stamp and stick it to the vinyl cling and then trim.
If you have mounted SU stamps and vinyl cling, you can peel the cushion away from the wood mount and then apply some kind of glue to the cushion and then stick the cushion to the vinyl cling. (When you peel the cushion from the wood mount, the sticky part stays on the wood.) What kind of glue? For the three sets that I did this with, I actually used the Alene's Tack It Over and Over stuff. I applied the glue to the cushion and let it "dry" or get tacky and then just stuck it to the cling and trimmed. This stuff is quite sticky if you don't first stick it to your arm or shirt to get rid of the stickiness to make it tacky. BUT... then I decided that maybe for the rest of my stamps/sets I will just remove the rubber from the foam and use the "good stuff"... the EZ Mount stuff. So that's what I've been doing. Pulling the rubber from the foam so I just have the rubber piece.
I think the vinyl cling that comes on the EZ Mount foam is REALLY good. The vinyl cling sheets that I had purchased (not the Grafix brand) aren't very "clingy."
I bought my CDs at Office Max at $9.99 for 25 -- although I didn't check at Walmart and have read they are WAY cheaper. (Shame on me.)
I bought my EZ Mount starter kit at Sunday International (online) when it was on sale for $29.95. I just bought 10 EZ Mount sheets on eBay for $29.99. You can get a LOT of stamps on one sheet of the EZ Mount stuff. I'm trying to recall what sets I put on one sheet....
Happy Winter (4)
Designer Greetings (4)
Corners Mini (4)
Little Somethings (12)
Itty Bitty Backgrounds (4)
Tree for All Seasons (4)
Nice & Easy Notes (
Prior to taking the stamps apart, I stamped them on a piece of cardstock. Then I scanned that sheet so that I could reduce the size just a bit for the index template I made in Word. This same template has an end of the CD label that sticks inside with the name of the set. The Nice and Easy Notes takes up two CDs so I have a "1 of 2" and "2 of 2" notation on the label as well so I remember there's more than one CD.
For NOW... I am planning on keeping the sets together, but since my stamp cabinet was organized more by category (especially the word stamps), I may have to reorganize at the least the words. I like having all of the Happy Birthday stuff together, the Thank Yous together, etc. The images were also mostly sorted by category. It makes it so much easier to find all of my "bear" stamps in one spot instead of having to remember where each one is. Mainly because I have many stamps from a billion companies. I don't have a stamped catalog of all my stamps... but a database that is on my computer and PDA. Since I almost always have my PDA with me, it has kept me from buying duplicate stamps. (Splash Shopper is the name of the program.)
I went unmounted several weeks ago. For those of you doing this, you will really like Cornish Heritage Farms unmounted stamps because they come with EZ mount on them already and ready to stamp with. I use the CD method and have yet to find any stamp besides a background stamp too big to fit in the CD. I keep my backgrounds in SU boxes and can put 5 per box according to style (in one box is canvas, linen, and all my fabric looking stamps. Stripes and plaids in another, etc). I don't know what took me so long to do this. I was really scared about taking a 10 year collection of stamps and "mutilating" them LOL. In the end they are so much nicer, neater, more organized, easy to find and absolutely easier to use. I love having my table space not filled with wood blocks!
excellent description Kimberly! I agree- EZ mount is the "good stuff" and vinyl cling is a cheaper alternative, but similar results.
At the moment I really have a mix of UM methods, but whatever method you choose, I'm sure you'll really love the space that you save
Here's a link to my website: http://www.tweetster.com/ Click the Rubberstamping link at the top and on the page that displays click the "My stamp room" link to see the neat stamp cabinet that my mom built for me. It's similar to the ones a person can see at the stamp conventions -- only mine was a birthday present! I have labels on each tray (acrylic box photo frame).
Now, these photos were taken about three years ago. I've since gotten married and moved, but I still have the same "stuff" -- although more stamps and accessories actually -- and a room just for stamping! It's so nice to have a door again to shut when I'm tired of working on a project.
I guess I'll be using the cabinet still to store all of the unmounted stamps in their CDs... or maybe to hide some of the other tools.
stampin maggie, to deal with the indexing issue, I've been stamping the Grafix cling with my image prior to putting it on the back of the stamp.
Not to sound too dumb -- I had also been wondering about "seeing" the orientation of the stamp when using it. So you take your stamp and stamp with stazon on the 'top' of the Grafix? The side that will touch the acrylic block?
That's what I'm assuming or it would be backwards. You buy the clear Grafix, right? So then you can try to line up your stazon image over the back of the rubber stamp?
Thanks for helping! I've been interested in this but know I'll be all upside down or something if I can't see my picture on top!
Not to sound too dumb -- I had also been wondering about "seeing" the orientation of the stamp when using it. So you take your stamp and stamp with stazon on the 'top' of the Grafix? The side that will touch the acrylic block?
That's what I'm assuming or it would be backwards. You buy the clear Grafix, right? So then you can try to line up your stazon image over the back of the rubber stamp?
Thanks for helping! I've been interested in this but know I'll be all upside down or something if I can't see my picture on top!
You've got it. you have to stamp the image on the side that will be on the block. Michaels didn't have any clear Grafix when I went, so I got what was available (opaque colors). Stamp the image, let it dry, then do your best to line it up with the rubber (just like when you attach a sticker sheet to a block in wood mounting). Then trim. I like having the image on the stamp, especially the word ones. I can never figure out which way is up otherwise. :rolleyes:
Here's a link to my website: http://www.tweetster.com/ Click the Rubberstamping link at the top and on the page that displays click the "My stamp room" link to see the neat stamp cabinet that my mom built for me. It's similar to the ones a person can see at the stamp conventions -- only mine was a birthday present! I have labels on each tray (acrylic box photo frame).
Kimberly
Wow, your mom rocks, Kimberly! Those shelves are awesome.
How expensive was/is it to unmount all of your sets??? I have about 50 sets and counting. I'm very interested in exploring this system myself!
I was able to mount about 7 sets on one sheet of the EZ Mount stuff. Typically the sheets are around $4 each. I just went through ten sheets today. I'm anticipating needing maybe twenty more. I've finished all of my SU sets and went through several of my single stamps. I have some of the CTMH sets to do plus a few thousand more single stamps. It's a good thing that I ran out of the EZ Mount stuff because would you believe I now have a blister on my left thumb?! That's from peeling the rubber from the foam!
I bought my EZ Mount sheets from this eBay seller: Simple Treasures Collage. About $3.50 per sheet.
I used Grafix on 75% of my sets. It is about $1 a sheet and you can do about 8 sets with one sheet. I used EZ Mount with the other 25%. All in all, it was not terribly expensive and just think of all the money you are going to save buying unmounteds. They tend to be 1/2 the price or less. I buy many from Cornish Heritage and they come already EZ mounted.
I went to Michael's yesterday and found the Grafix stuff. They also only had the colored stuff. I didn't buy any but it was nice to know that I could find it. By reading the back of the package, it looks like you get NINE sheets of the colored vinyl cling for $6.99. That's pretty good. (Especially if you can wait until there's a 40% coupon!) The packages of clear sheets only have SIX. From what I saw on the internet, the clear packages sell for the same price. I did find one place that sold the the clear packages for under $4 at ArtSuppliesOnline.com -- however they must have sold out because it isn't even listed this morning.
