Thursday Tip

Happy Thursday Everyone! 6 Days until Mardi Gras! Are you ready for a new Thursday Tip? Well today, I have two! One to keep your wood-mounted stamps organized and the other to help keep them clean.

Before mounting and applying stickers to any of your wood-mount stamps, copy the sticker sheet and adhere it to the top of the case with a piece of double-stick tape. This helps you to know what stamps go with what set. Next, copy your stamp sets into a binder. Not only did I do this, but I made categories for them: Alphabets, Holiday/Seasons, Backgrounds, Miscellaneous (or organize with dividers the same way the catalog is organized). To make things even easier, I also have descriptions with stamp sets assigned to them. E.g. Flowers. Next to this category I list each stamp set that has a flower in it and list the page number it is shown on. Another category would be cakes. This way when I need a stamp that has a cake on it, I know which stamp set to go to. It was a lot of work in the beginning, but because my stamp library has grown, I know where to go in a hurry when I need to make a card pronto!!

The next tip is priceless! If you are OCD like me, you want to keep your stamps clean as much as possible. After mounting your new stamp to a wood block, take some clear nail polish and paint the bottom side of the block, without getting the polish on the rubber of your stamp. The block will stay clean forever instead of picking up inks and cleaners and other stuff. Another alternative is to spray them with an acrylic sealer before you mount anything and be done a lot faster and get the same result! Enjoy!