Mounting Un-Mounted Stamp Sheets

Woo hoooooo!!!  It is that time of the week again when I get to watch my favourite programme tonight!!  Am already looking forward to watching all the routines on Dancing On Ice and can't wait to see what Jason has to say this week!!

Anyway enough about that I had a question from Pauline yesterday asking about whether I mount all my un-mounted stamps.  The short answer to that is yes I do but it got me thinking that perhaps I ought to explain the way that I do it as there are so many un-mounted stamps out there.

Sometimes when you buy 'cling' stamps (with the mounting foam already attatched) they have got the design on the 'cling' side of the stamp which I really like as you can then see that you are stamping it the right way up which is especially handy when you are stamping words!

Now unfortunately I don't have any pictures to explain what I am going to say so you will need to read this carefully!!  (I have in the past shown how to do this on one of our Create and Craft programmes so some of you might know what I am talking about!)

1. First of all peel the protective covering from the cling side of your mounting foam.
2. Ink up your un-mounted stamp sheet with a dark colour StazOn inkpad. (I normally use black.) Carefully pick up the sheet, turn it over and place it onto the cling side of your mounting foam lining up 2 edges of the stamp sheet with 2 edges of the mounting foam.
3. Using a large acrylic block, press firmly all over the stamp sheet to transfer the ink onto the mounting foam.
4. Peel the stamp sheet away from the foam and clean the stamp sheet.
5. Next turn the mounting foam over (turning it sideways as opposed from top to bottom) and remember which 2 sides you used to line up the stamp sheet with - for instance I normally tend to line my stamp sheet up with the bottom edge and left edge. Once the mounting foam has been turned over these 2 edges then become the bottom edge and right edge.
6. Peel back a little of the protective covering from the bottom edge of the sticky side of the mounting foam and place your stamp sheet carefully into position lining up those same 2 edges.
7. Once in place, peel away the rest of the protective covering and press all over the stamp sheet to ensure it is nicely stuck.
8. Cut out around your stamps as normal and then store on an EZ mount storage panel or whatever you prefer.
9. You now have all your stamps mounted with a handy reference guide on the cling side - you probably won't be spot on with your stamped images on the cling side in relation to the actual stamps themselves but at least you will know which image you are stamping and that it is the right way up!

I hope this helps!!  I normally tend to use EZ Mount as my mounting foam as this is great quality along with the EZ Mount storage panels which can both be purchased from The Stamp Man.