‘whodathunk’ that there would be sooo many advantages to unmounteds?

[photopress image=”unmounted_1.jpg”] 

hello ‘all ‘ (I got a little embarassed of counting the people who read my ‘shtick’ (a jewish term meaning idiosyncrasies (I confirmed the spelling at www.dictionary.com   lol) or individual mannerisms of a specific person))

Before I started this adventure I was an avid ‘collector’ (fancy term for spendthrift, shopaholic or pure addict) of rubber stamps, tools, organizational  apparatuses (or is it “apparati” (I confirmed the spelling  ‘apparatuses’ again via www.dictionary.com– weird spelling, no?).  Oh I forgot about the paper and the ‘bellies’ (new fave word as per previous blog post).  Ok, so with all of the stamps I have purchased, I cannot even begin to explain how much money was spent and yet I still felt there was a missing ‘link’ in the stamping world today.. backgrounds, frames, oh ya and DA BELLAS.. ladies with personality.. ladies with pizazz… ladies with a CAREER.. ya all get where I am going?  So that’s how they were born. 

Now the next step was.. how should I have them manufactured? In what material?  Like I said I was a DIE HARD wood mounted fan and I had just put away about 3-4 rubbermaid boxes of them-and boy were they *HEAVY* (as if I lifted them..LOL).. you get what I mean ;).  The thought of mounting each stamp gave me heartache though.  I had no time!  I had to get the Bellas OUT THERE! I had plenty of unmounteds that were never used and thrown in a drawer (under the paper, the organizational tools, the ‘bellies’, the wood to mount them, the velcro, the ribbon.. *giggles*).  So what did I do?  I bought ‘meself’ a polymer making machine.. OMG.. I could go on and on..LOL.. my darling husband redid my ‘office’-the laundry room.. put halogen lights in, racking, pans, tape, etc.. set me up.  And there I was.. STOOPED over a table, pouring polymer, baking, taping, rinsing …you could imagine the rest.. Sure enough there was a prob with the machine and I was able to return it.  So there I was… with a huge PIT in my tummy…. lots of great designs, a backache from the stooping, blind from the halogen lights and STICKY from the polymer.  A beau-tiful sight.  I was scared.  The new trend WAS polymer , I didn’t wanna mount my stamps due to the work involved and the obvious storage issue.  I wasn’t particularly impressed with the crispness of the image of the polymer and I did love the rubber… Don’t get me wrong.. I **ADORE** polymer for alphabets.. you can’t compete with that.. they are amazing and there are great quality polymer stamps out there too..

Sooo, the thinking cap went back on.. I wanted the best of all worlds.. I wanted rubber.  I wanted the ability to place it on an acrylic block and see through it for placement and i did not want to permanently mount them to wood… Ok, I was getting somewhere here.  I did not like the fact that the unmounteds I bought I had to cut myself (little did I know that my FUTURE would be cutting rubber..LOL), so another feature I wanted was to have rubber closely trimmed, highly etched, great quality with no need for cushioning (do not like cutting ‘icky’ stuff).. that way I am GUARANTEED that people will use my stamps and NOT throw them in the same drawer I have with the bellies and the paper and the and the and the… (you get the pic).

So that was how I made the decision of unmounted, closely trimmed, highly etched RUBBAH. 

Ok, so we know about the storage.. I store mine in sports card pockets in a binder.. I have about 200-300 in a binder.. my sentiments are in slide pockets.. they are perf!

easy to clean.. no worries about using solvent inks (cannot use solvent inks with polymer/acrylic)

no need to cut as they are already done for you

now  my FAVORITE plus is that you can use the ‘puzzle method’ with unmounteds.. see the pic above (please forgive the *well loved* stamps above).  I would take any image, border, sentiment etc that I want and just place it on the cardstock!  If I feel that it doesn’t work or needs something else, I remove one stamp and add another until I like what I see! Isn’t that amazing!  I do that all the time!  And especially since the stamps are closely trimmed, there is no guesstimating… what you see is what you get!  LOOOOVE IT.  So now you see how I work.. you should try it too! it really saves a lot of grief.

 OMG.. can I talk more?  Will I have anything else to write tomorrow????

 Of COURSE I will!! 

toodles to my ‘all’

Em