New Stamp Storage and Mounting Idea!

I have been playing with the idea of separating my sentiment stamps from the sets they came with for a while now. I liked the idea of being able to see all of my greeting options at once instead of having to rifle through all of my stamp sets to find the saying I wanted. Here is what I came up with:

These generic jenga blocks were $5 for a set of 48...bargain!

I mounted my small unmounted sayings onto “Jenga” blocks. I put a thin coating of rubber cement on the block and on the back of the stamp and let it set for a couple of minutes then pressed the stamp on the block. But first I stamped the stamp on the block so I would know what stamp it was at a quick glance. Also note that I double and triple mounted the stamps (I put 2-3 happy birthday stamps on one block) to conserve space. Then I placed the newly mounted stamps in a printer’s tray I found at a yard sale last week:

I just love the cubbies! I can put most of my sentiments in here and it is so nice to grab the sentiment I need and go!

I love cubbies!

This is for my everyday stamps, all of my holiday sentiments are with that holiday’s stamps and any sentiments that only went with the set they came with I left with their sets. Also my clear stntiment stamps and my sentiments that were too large for the Jenga blocks went in CD cases based on theme, I only filled 5 cases, I thought I would have more but really, how many ‘thinking of you’ stamps does one need LOL? All in all I love this system, the first time I stamped a “thank you” on a card it was all worth it. Speaking of cards I want to share a card I made today. I used the layout challenge at Oriental Stamp Art to create this Z-fold card:

I love how a simple fold can make a card seem so much more fancy, it is easy though, you just cut a sheet of 4″x11″ card and score it at 2.5″ and 5.5″ but you can change the dimensions and where you score for a different result. I used a Stampin up border punch (I’m so lame, it is the only edging punch I own)  😉 on each end and on the ribbon and mat element. The fancy square is a Martha Stewart punch. The background peacock feather stamp and “friend” are from a Fiskars clear stamp set, the Ribbon is from Hero Arts and the detailed butterfly is from About Art Accents. I used a Kleidacolor inkpad (Berry I think) as my ink. I stamped the background 3 times to get it to stretch across and it was easy to line up. To make the dye based ink stick well I rubbed the clear stamp with a pink eraser and cleaned the stamp before inking. It really helps ink stick to the clear stamps!

This card qualifies for the following challenges: Aud Sentiments Challenge, The Rubber Cafe , All That Scrap Wednesday Challenge, Flutterby Wednesdays, Kelley Kid’s, My Mum’s Craft shop, Simon Says Stamp, The Paper Variety , 365 Cards, and of course the scetch challenge at Oriental Stamp Art.

Well, I did not intend to write a novel today! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!