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I am in the process of unmounting my stamps and things are not working out as I expected... I was hoping one of the wise women on this site might be able to offer some advice as to what I might be doing wrong and some suggestions to help me correct the problem.
I was all excited to unmount my stamps from the wood blocks, purchased Aleene's Tack It Over & Over, tons of empty jewel cases, etc. These were the steps I followed:
- heat the stamp in the microwave for about 10 seconds
- peel off the rubber from the block (I had hoped to get just the rubber, but the foam came with it intact and I didn't know how to neatly separate it from the rubber and have a nice smooth underside to put the TIOAO on, so I left it there)
- peel the sticker off the other side of the block and adhere it to the exposed sticky foam
- apply some TIOAO over the sticker
- wait until it dries clear (maybe an hour? I didn't watch the clock, just until the white spots were completely clear)
- pat it against my hand a few times to remove some stickiness and then place it in a jewel case.
I was pretty happy with this, UNTIL I went to remove one and the sticker stayed stuck to the jewel case and the foam ripped completely in half. I started to cry because Simply Sweet is one of my favorite sets and I can't replace it since it is retired. (then I felt stupid for crying over STAMPS when there are young men and women risking their lives on the front line, sick children in the hospital, etc. - I realize this isn't a major tragedy, but I did invest a lot of time and money into this hobby, it brings me such joy, so I hope you all don't think I am silly for being disappointed for this not working out as I expected).
So, oh wise ones, any advice on what I did wrong? Please?
I would also welcome suggestions on how to remove the bare rubber entirely (then maybe I might be able to use both sides of the jewel case like I do for Papertrey stamps, rather than just one since the foam is so chunky and thick, I have several larger sets that take up 2 jewel cases instead of just one, I am tempted to leave them in the clam shell cases...).
Anyone? I appreciate your help...
Thank you all in advance. Hope your 2008's are healthy, happy & safe (and full of lots of stamping and other things that make you happy).
I am glad you asked this question cause I tried to unmount one set and the same thing happened to me, but I was not going to ask cause I was just to lazy or busy with other things to persue it anymore than what I did. However I would love to unmount my stamps for many reasons besides saving room. I am going to keep my eye on this thread.
I found if I wanted to remove the foam from the actual rubber- I just heated it longer in the microwave- but I had such a hard time getting it off cleanly- I just left it.
In almost all my cases- the foam still had enough stickiness to it I didn't need any TIO&O- but then I wasn't adding the image sticker to the back of it.
I have found that with SU! stamps, you're better off not trying to put the sticker on the back unless it's a new set - once that sticker has been on the wood block, and once the stamp has been on the wood block, it doesn't stay together so very well. I even stopped putting the stickers on from the new sets because I can never get them lined up exactly and then it throws me off when I try to stamp with them. I really don't care if the stamps themselves are indexed as long as I have a stamped index stored with them. The only exception to this is alphabet stamps - I always write the letter on the back of the stamp so I can see thru my acrylic block to make sure the word is spelled correctly!
The TIO&O will grip a little less aggressively if you dilute it 50/50 with water before you paint it on. If I leave the cushion on the stamp, I just paint this right over the sticky grey cushion.
On the SU! stamps, I sometimes do remove the cushion - it's always peeled off the rubber pretty easily for me. Then you can use them as bare rubber with the TIO&O directly on the back (and you'd be able to put them on both sides of the cd case) or remount on EZ Mount if you prefer.
If you're trying to unmount Michael's $1 stamps, I recommend you not try to remove the cushion, though - I've heard that theirs is extremely difficult to separate from the rubber.
I don't have any suggestions for removing the foam (I leave mine on), but as for the TIO&O, the trick that I use is to let the glue dry for a few hours (sometimes overnight), then stick the stamp onto a dish towel several times until it's just slightly tacky. At first you'll have to really peel it off the towel, but when it's about right it'll stick but come off with just minor resitance. (If that makes any sense!) Putting it on my hand just didn't seem to de-stick it enough.
Another tip I've heard (but haven't tried yet) is to dilute the TIO&O with some water in a spray bottle and spray a fine layer on the stamps, then let dry - it's supposed to still be sticky enough to use with acrylic blocks but not so sticky that it'll get STUCK the way your stamps did. Hope this helps! Once you get the system down that works for you, unmounted really is great - don't give up!
I found when I didn't remove the foam the TIOAO needed to sit at least overnight. The worst were my Inky Antics and some cheapo stamps I bought at Crafts 2000.
You could go down to bare rubber and just use double sided tape to stick the rubber to your acrylic block. My SU and other stamps still make a great image even without the foam cushion. I store the rubber in baseball card collector sheets that I get from the dollar store.
__________________ Alanna
"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eyelet..." Gallery & Blog
It's a pain but I take the rubber off the foam...it's just a lot easier to work with. Then I paint a little of the glue stuff on it, let it dry (10-15 min.) and into a CD case it goes!
Thanks to several of the SUPER ladies at this site, I am having more success with my unmounting process. I was able to separate the rubber from the foam with some REALLY HARD rubbing (and have a huge blister/hole on my thumb to prove it), but this enables me to fit stamps on both sides of the jewel case rather than just one. I am also letting the ATIOAO longer and trying to use less of it.
To my dismay, I also abandoned removing the stickers from the wood blocks and applying them to the rubber before applying the ATIOAO - some suggested that re-applied stickers don't work well and might have been partially at fault. I must admit, I miss having them to index my stamps. When I apply stamps to both sides of the cases I cannot insert an index label. I may have to keep a binder that indexes all my stamps instead of including them wich each case as I originally imagined. Now I have all blocks with only the foam and stickers in a big pile in our family room (LOL) as I hesitate to throw them away until I know for sure there is no way I can use the stickers... (We have NO storage space here and move frequently - thus the attraction to the more compact, lighter-weight unmounted storage method!).
I have finished all my SU sets that were previously wood mounted, and am about to attack the new unmounted ones. Luckily, with these I can apply the new stickers directly to the sticky foam before applying the ATIOAO.
Some suggested that I skip the TIOAO and simply use double-sided tape or just apply the TIOAO once to my block. I use the tape for my Bellas and it works fine, but I like the idea of my unmounted stamps clinging to the sides of a jewel case rather than flopping around loosly inside, and I think it would tack even more TIOAO to coat the insides of the jewel cases to get them to stick there than it does to apply it to the individual stamps.
Thank you all for your wonderful suggestions - if you have any more too add, PLEASE do so! I really appreciate your help in overcoming the obstacles I have encountered during this journey
I must admit, I miss having them to index my stamps. When I apply stamps to both sides of the cases I cannot insert an index label. I may have to keep a binder that indexes all my stamps instead of including them wich each case as I originally imagined.
If you really want an index in the cd case with your stamps, you could cut a sheet of paper to the size of the case and laminate the backside. Or you could stick the stamps to a cut-down piece of transparency film and put the paper index between the cd case and the transparency.
If you are going to remove the foam too and use a mounting foam similar to what TAC uses, stamp the image on the mounting foam first using Stazon and THEN stick the stamp to the mounting foam. This way you'll see the image on the back side of the stamp. (hope this makes sense!) I do this with all my TAC stamps (it's easy because I just ink up the whole uncut set and stamp it on the foam and then stick the entire uncut square of rubber to the foam before cutting out the images.) I do the sticker technique with SU! but as one poster said, it won't work if you are resticking it...it has to be a fresh sticker on fresh, tacky foam. I know it can be a bit daunting going unmounted but you'll save a load of space and might even use some stamps more often.
I also recommend getting a couple of spare acrylic blocks so you don't have to clean and put away a stamp right away due to needing the block.
Thanks to several of the SUPER ladies at this site, I am having more success with my unmounting process. I was able to separate the rubber from the foam with some REALLY HARD rubbing (and have a huge blister/hole on my thumb to prove it), but this enables me to fit stamps on both sides of the jewel case rather than just one. I am also letting the ATIOAO longer and trying to use less of it.
I have found that the adhesive remover from SU! works almost as good as rubbing with your finger minus the blister. I know that you are done now, but maybe this will help someone out there. :0)
__________________ ~Lori~ Mom of 3...Colton (20),Justin (19), and Melody (17)
Okay, status update. Still not even close to being finished as I had hoped during winter break (sigh). I am mostly on new unmounted sets now so those are easier to peel off the foam (usually) and then adhere the new sticker to (doesn't always adhere directly to the rubber well) and putting TIOAO on the back.
I am saving all my clean, unused wooden blocks for future projects. Before I throw out all the blocks with foam and stickers but no rubber attached (i.e. previously mounted blocks) that are piling up - can anyone think of a use for them before I do? I was peeling the stickers off and applying them to the foam when I was unmounting them, but they were separating from the rubber and sticking to the jewel case so I stopped doing that with stickers that had already be adhered to blocks. I hate to discard them and then wish I hadn't a few weeks or months from now, but we have limited storage here and will be moving in 6 - 18 months, so I can't just set them aside "just in case".
Anyone? Thanks again for all of your suggestions and help!
I have no answer about the blocks with foam and index image still stuck to them--I have two cardboard boxes full.
I did want to mention, though, that if you are stamping with a stamp from which all foam has been removed and you can't seem to get a good image, try putting a little padding UNDER your cardstock before stamping. A mouse pad or padded place mat works quite well.
I was SO careful when I was unmounting my stamps - or at least I though.
Tonight when I was putting away some unmoutned sets after the ATIOAO had dried I noticed I was missing two alphabet letters: the lower case t and the uppercase F - NOOOOOOOOOOOO! This set is discontinued too, so I can't even reorder it (even though I loathe the idea of purchasing an entire new alphabet to replace 2 letters. Man, I can't believe this!
Not sure if this will be of help to you but when I unmounted my SU stamps, I kept the foam and was able to apply the image sticker to the back of the foam. Biggest difference between what I do and what I've read here is I put the tack it stuff on my acrylic blocks so my rubber stamps aren't sticky at all. After the tack it stuff dries on the block, I rub it on my jeans to pick up lint for a while. It does not need to be terribly sticky; just enough to keep the rubber from accidentally falling off when you go to stamp your beautiful card. HTH.
Just when I thought I had the systems down, sigh...
The SU stickers just AREN'T sticking to the bare rubber - DOH! When I go to use them the sticker stays stuck to the acrylic block, and sometimes when I go to peel it off it rips! :(
I suppose everything will work just fine if I leave the stickers off, but then I have no way to index the sets since I want to be able to stick stamps on both sides of the jewel cases - unless I glue paper with the images stamped on them on the outsides of the cases, but then I don't know if they will fit in the CD racks smoothly...
I was SO looking forward to doing this but am quite disappointed in the outcome. Part of me is sorry that I didn't just leave everything on the blocks, I always liked the feel of the blocks, just not the weight (since we move every 2-3 years and have a weight allowance) or the space it takes up. I loved using bellas and PTI stamps, so I thought SU would work fine too, but so far, I am less than thrilled.
I had a set to unmount that I really really wanted to index with the stickers, and I stuck them back on the stamp with some of the red-liner adhesive that comes in the full sheets (got mine at Michael's).
It was bit of a challenge and would get a little pricey to do it with all the sets, but it did work.
Also, make sure that after you put the TIO&O on the back of the stamp and it dries, to stick it to your arm or a towel or something to de-stickify it. Hopefully then the sticker will have more grab than the TIO&O and they should stay on the stamp.
I'm halfway thru unmounting and here's what I've done. Heat up stamps for 7 seconds in microwave, peel off wooden block foam and all. Stick sticker on foam, trim and put a very very light coating of Ailene's on it. Let sit over night, check the tackiness and then adhere to plastic sheets in binder.
I used some unmounted stamps Wednesday night and had no problems! I was so happy.
Ok, I just tried it with a new set of SU stickers. I put the sticker on the foam (both sticky sides stuck to each other). Then I cut the stamp and put a thin coat of ATIO&O on it. Now to let them dry.... we'll see tomorrow how it worked... :::fingers crossed:::
Not sure if this will be of help to you but when I unmounted my SU stamps, I kept the foam and was able to apply the image sticker to the back of the foam. Biggest difference between what I do and what I've read here is I put the tack it stuff on my acrylic blocks so my rubber stamps aren't sticky at all. After the tack it stuff dries on the block, I rub it on my jeans to pick up lint for a while. It does not need to be terribly sticky; just enough to keep the rubber from accidentally falling off when you go to stamp your beautiful card. HTH.
I do this too! And so far it works great. Unmount your stamp from the block with the foam still intact - peel off the sticker from the front of the block and put it on the foam trying to line up with the image as best as you can. I just use a small piece of double sided tape to stick it onto the acrylic block - Super easy and not messy!!
