Finding a better use for the plastic boxes from Stampin’ Up! wood mounted stamps.

First, I wish to take a few moments to thank all of the Operation Write Home card makers who stopped by my blog last week.  Seriously, I thought something had gone wrong with my blog stats thing.  Usually my number of visitors, on a high traffic day, is 60.  To see there were 500 that came by totally blew me away.

A heartfelt “Thank You” goes out to all of you who came by to take a gander at my public outing of a problem I have with paper.  I appreciate each and every one of you.

My scrap paper project has been handled and I am quite happy with the results.  This new project is to find out just exactly what kinds of rubber stamps I have hidden away in several drawers.  I don’t consider myself a card maker…mostly because I don’t think I have the knack for it.

I accumulated several Stampin’ Up! stamps a few years back.  Most of which remained in their boxes unused and chucked into the dark cavern of my closet.  Not willing to spend the time involved in becoming a deft rubber stamp artist I pretended those blocks of wood with rubber on them were not even here.  Time to get those stamps out of the dark and into the light.  I need to take an inventory of what I have.  I like the idea of making cards for our military heros to have something to send home to their family members.

I have a small crafting area and those boxes take up a lot of space.  First on the agenda is to get all of the Stampin’ Up! wood mounted stamps unmounted.  That project has been completed.

I have a package of weekly time cards I purchased from my local office supply store about three years ago.  They have sat on a shelf and been forgotten.

These time cards are 4″ wide by 7″ long.  I’ve lopped off the top inch, removing the punched holes, for the cards to measure 4″ x 6″.

I am the proud owner of a recipe box given to me by my daughter, Carissa, a couple years back.  That box will do nicely.

The time cards fit nicely in the box and the stamped images are there for me to see.

I have created a video to show you how I use the plastic boxes for my stamp storage solution.  The lids are cut off, trimmed down, and attached to photo copy paper that I have copied the cards to.  This video takes you, briefly, through the steps of unmounting the rubber stamp and making it sticky backed with the use of Two Way Glue.  I show you what I have come up with to reduce the space taken up by those boxes.  My rubber stamps are going to be in a couple of 3-ring binders when I’m finished.

Once I have completed this project I will have to think about another one.  What to do with all those blasted wood blocks!

The plastic boxes have come in handy for my bead drawer.  That thing is a tangled mess.

What is your system for knowing what rubber stamps you have?  How do you keep track of your stamps?  Do you prefer wood mounted over the cling mount?  I’d love to know what you do with your stamps.

Leslie

Sweating The Details

Jann’s wooden frame piece is coming together and I’m making some progress on it.  Here is what I’ve done so far.

If you are just joining in and want to know how I covered the wooden blocks, check out my previous post “The Frame Job” to see a quasi tutorial on what I did with the blocks from wood mounted stamps.

So Jann will know that I truly do know who she is and what her last name is (for more on that bit of confusion see this post) I am going to modify a Spanish stamp from Stampin’ Up!

Gracias wood mounted stamp

I like the look of the filigreed “G”.

Heat embossing prep

I misplaced my Very Vanilla card stock, not so easy to do in this small room but I did it.  So I’ll be using Whisper White.  I used the Embossing Buddy to rub on an area of the paper before I inked the Gracias stamp with VersaMark.

Black embossing powder

Covered the entire stamped area with black embossing powder, tapped off the excess and heated it up with my heat tool.

Heat embossed image

Look how shiny this is, and the raised texture from the heat embossing.  Love it.

Cut the image out

I, very carefully, cut the image from the paper and found it to be just way too WHITE and looked odd on the block.  Antique Lace Distress Ink from Ranger Industries will take care of that.  At least I hope it will.

Mod Podge to the block

I’m using Mod Podge to adhere the “G” to one of the smaller blocks.

Mounted to the block

If I were a bit more comfortable with fussy cutting I probably would have cut away the rest of the white but since I’m ham fisted I knew I’d just destroy the beautiful image.  I still think it looks quite lovely on the block.  More especially so since the stark white of the paper doesn’t require “shades” to keep from blinding you.

Joe "interruptus"

Joe was in the middle of some serious thinking and planning.  See the paper pad below the blocks I took into his room.  I thought his brain would appreciate a few minutes to get itself untwisted from the “knotty” mess Joe was putting it in 🙂

That clamp

Joe read my post of when he was working on Maureen’s frames.  He did say that I could take his clamp if I wanted it.  He is so generous to me.  But I think it is only because he knows I’ll go and take it anyway if I should decide it would come in handy 🙂

Precision is what counts

I love it when he takes pride in his work.  Sometimes makes me (the slap dash and put it together person) kind of crazy when he gets so caught up in the details.  But I do love the way the man works.

Maureen's blocks

A slight change in his appearance has occured.

Jann's blocks

He gave me  his sad face and meekly begged for a haircut.

More measuring

A bit more measuring and fiddling.

More measuring

A bit more measuring…..okay get that hinge put on sometime today will ya’!

A tap with his hammer

After he marked the hinge screw areas he gave them a whack with his cute little gold hammer and a punch.  This is totally exhausting work and he has worked up a powerful sweat.

Torturing Lynn

Lynn expressed an interest in this drill and mighty skinny drill bit.  She said this would be just the right thing for drilling holes in her dominoes.  Doing my part to help others with tools and such. 🙂

A bit of chin action

What are you doing?!  I had to ask and he would not answer until he was done.  It was to help steady the drill and keep it lined up with the hole so the drill bit would not go in crooked.

Closer look

I thought I’d get a bit “artsy” in my documenting the process and change the angle of the camera of my iPhone.

I wore him out

This process had caused him to break out in beads of sweat.  He’s done and can finally rest from all the rigorous work he had to do 🙂

Joe's part is finished

Joe is finished with his handy work and he did a fantastic job I must admit.  Now he can go take a nap, or get his brain twisted back in knots with that schematic drawing he was doing, or go to his recliner and read, or….whatever.  He’s earned it 🙂