Rubber Stamp Clean-up, part 1

Where did all of my stamps go?!

I own collections of two types of stamps. The postage variety you've seen plenty of, but I haven't posted much about my rubber art stamp collection. My love of these stamps dates back to early childhood, when my paternal grandmother let us play with a very old set of stamps intended for schoolkids. These weren't rubber, but a very hard substance, maybe even wood. I used the crap out of those! Years later, something like 25 years ago now, I came across some really great stamps in a gift shop in Cadillac, MI. I was in a temporary "cute" phase and bought several. And then I went batshit insane like I do with every other hobby and started amassing huge quantities of things. Also like every other hobby, my interest in it waxed and waned, and I added stamps and used them when I was into it, and they languished when I wasn't.

A few months ago, I started working on organizing my office. I had new furniture with lots of drawers, and still more stuff than I could possibly fit into them, including a collection of rubber stamps that extended back well over 20 years (not counting the set from my grandmother that I'm never getting rid of). I decided that I could only have two drawers of stamps and accessories and proceeded to cull the massive collection by at least half. I had long since left the cute phase behind, so those were the easiest to get rid of. What was left was a mixture of permanently mounted (on wooden blocks) and a variety of applications to stick a stamp to an acrylic block. I had an entire collection of crying women, lots of silly and sarcastic ones, plus (naturally) tons of Halloween stamps. 

Long story short, I decided that I wanted all of my stamps to be the same style and ordered materials to convert every single one to static cling (those that weren't already that style). What I ordered was something called EZ Mount. It comes in two thicknesses, and if you're going to convert a collection, you'll want both kinds. The thin kind is good for stamps that won't come off the thick foam mount they came on. The normal (thick) kind is for the ones that you were able to separate from the block and old foam (just the die). One side is super sticky, to adhere to the stamp, and the other side is smooth and it will temporarily stick to an acrylic block or a hard plastic surface like a CD or special organization tabs and pages (which I ordered (one set of each to start); I also found a big binder to stick them all in).

When I'm done, all of my stamps should fit into that binder and I'll get at least one drawer back (still need one for accessories like stamp pads, embossing powder, heat gun, etc.). I ordered the cling sheets and pages/tabs from The Stampin' Place (no affiliation). Some of the items are on Amazon, but the prices were painful. This shop has reasonable prices (except the scissors I link to below, which were cheaper on Amazon) and takes PayPal. You can use any acrylic blocks -- I got a set at a craft store with a 40%-off coupon to supplement the few I had from way back.

That was a while ago, and I still had the bulk of my remaining collection in a drawer on wooden blocks. The other night I decided to just get started. I looked up suggestions for "un-mounting" the stamps and dove in. It wasn't as bad as I thought. Except for a few stubborn ones, they all either separated from the block easily with their foam in good shape, or the rubber part (the die) peeled right off the foam. Less than ten percent needed special care (the smaller or cheaper a stamp, the more likely they were mounted in a non-traditional way).

Feel free to look around the interwebs for some other suggestions. The key is be patient. and peel slowly and carefully. Once you have a die that brought some chunks of foam along with it, you have a less fun challenge ahead. (Image: far right is a die that came off cleanly, center is a couple that wouldn't come off their foam, but were in okay condition, left are some that came off less than smoothly.)

There are two main ways to separate stamps from the blocks

1. Cold. I tried this after I'd done the majority of stamps the second way, but wish I'd tried it first! I put a bunch of stamps in the freezer for 30 minutes or so (15 might be enough). Then I pulled a fingertip up against the edge of the rubber in a few places to see if it would lift. When I found that spot, I carefully lifted the die away and slowly peeled it off of the foam. A couple peeled right off the block, with the foam intact. I  have both kinds of mounting materials, so I let them be. (At this point, my poor thumbnails, already normally a mess, were just toast.)
2. Heat. The procedure is the same as above, except you microwave the stamps (rubber side up) one at a time for 10-12 seconds ( I split the difference and went with 11 - some people say 20, but that seems like a lot). I used this method for the majority of stamps. It worked pretty well,
   but the heat also released ink and oy, was I a mess! If I had to do it again, I'd start with cold, and set aside any stamps that wouldn't cooperate, and try heat on them.

Scrubbing away the leftovers.

What about those that didn't cooperate? I had a handful of dies that brought either a tiny bit of backing with them, up to huge, terrible chunks. The majority of these were mounted using non-traditional methods like that double-stick mounting tape or some weird black foam I've never seen. I decided to take a risk and try an oil-based cleaner like GooGone to release the adhesive holding the foam to the rubber.. (If you decided to do this, take care and test it out on something you don't love, just in case. Again, I'm no expert.) I added a tiny bit to the back of the stamps and let it soak for just a few minutes. Then I took a nylon scrubber that I dipped in warm water and rubbed the back of the die. Most of the bits left behind fell right off. The two stamps with the weird black foam and the two with mounting tape (none of them my work) took a little more work, but eventually it all came off. I immediately rinsed each die in warm water and patted it dry. 

Next step (after the scissors I ordered arrive), will be to re-mount all of these stamps onto the EZ Mount and cut them out. Once they're in the binder, I'll need to find a way to decipher what some of them are (no more helpful images on the back). The plus side is that the acrylic blocks make image placement a breeze, and the binder should mean all of my stamps are in one place and easy to flip through. Unmounted stamps are way cheaper, too, and it's the work of seconds to apply the cling foam.

Quite honestly, the main drawback that I see in going to an all static cling system is that you have to either keep a list or have a damn good memory to know where stamps came from (if you care). If you have cool stamps, someone will inevitably ask "where did you get that stamp?!" (Of course some of my stamps are so old that I can certainly refer to the list I made before I discarded the wood, but my answer has a good chance of being "they're long out of business, sorry.")

When I do start re-mounting my collection, I'll take some pictures and do a follow-up. [See part 2 for an update and mounting instructions.]