Just have TOO many stamps...

I don't know about you but I have a T-O-N of stamps. I started to remove them from their wood to give me more space. There were sets I wasn't sure I would use anymore. These were mostly Stampin' Up sets.

After going to Splitcoaststampers site,

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ 

I took one of the sets that didn't look like it would be used much, but found samples that looked interesting.

Below you will see all the samples that used the one set.

Once the samples were made the stamp set wasn't needed any longer. Now I can, and did, give the set away. 

There's a group that meets once a month to make cards for supporting my friend's church. We all bring in our items that we aren't going to use anymore, it case it strikes someone's fancy.

This set went home with another lady.

When there are more items than anyone wants they are taken to a local charity to raise money for the elderly.

 Please enjoy looking at the samples, but also consider what sets you don't need to keep forever.

 It will make room for new items!  

The reason I haven't posted for almost a month is...

because I have been taking all my Stampin' Up wood mounted stamps off their wood.

To go from this!

 To this!

You can imagine how much less space it takes in my cupboard! It does take a while and there were so many different ways to do it online that I got confused.

I tried pulling it off the wood, gently, even microwaving for a few seconds to get the rubber off. This works fine but if you microwave and you want to use the indexing it's more difficult to get the indexing off.

I just went slowly and lost all the glue off the rubber but saved most of it on the index. When I put it on the rubber it stuck just fine.

The next idea was to use Aleene's Tack it Over and Over. I tried this on one set and I had trouble with the  glue sticking to the CD case. (By the way I work in a library and we take our CD's out of the jewel cases and put them into locking cases, you might find a wealth of unwanted CD cases at your local library!)

Back to the computer to search for another way to mount the stamps. I found, but can't find now or I'd share the link, a lady in England who removed her stamps, used double stick tape to apply window film to her stamps.

     I found this at Home Depot and it was the most expensive part of the experiment. It runs about $13.00 for ths smallest package. But I had to try it! I found the tape method to be a pain of trimming.

 So I took my stamps I hadn't wood mounted yet and placed the window film on them. It worked great on the acrylic stamps! YEAH!

But then the problem with the double stick tape... hmm...

what if I put the film on the block and the indexing on the back of the rubber. (This is great because the other way I had no indexing).

  

Yes, people it works GREAT!!!

So now I have a bunch of blocks with the film and a bunch of extra film! However I will save it just in case the film on the block gets dirty, I can replace as I need.

The best part was an extra problem solved. My friend and I noticed that some unmounted, cling backed  rubber stamps (not clear) were puckering at the edges and not staying tight on the acrylic blocks.

 The window film takes care of all that! It clings to the indexing (these are only the stamps that have the clear plastic indexing e.g. Stampin Up). Now any older stamps will not have to be re-indexed!

YEAH, again!!!

**News Flash**

I will no longer be teaching in the Monroe County library system. 2012 took a lot out of me and I've decided to spend more time working for the soldiers, people in nursing homes, friends and family. However I will try and get at least one posting a month onto my blog for people to learn something new or a card!  

Happy 2013 Everyone!