Lets face it, stamping has become so popular in scrapbooking, it is almost an addiction by itself. For many, it is their primary addiction, for others it is just fun to have the stamps to use in your scrapbooks. Regardless of where you fall in that little spectrum, storing the unmounted stamps can be a challenge.
Once upon a time, I actually stored them in a drawer in my iris cart. But it was difficult to find what I was looking for and I got frustrated easily. I came up with a better solution that you will hopefully find useful as well.
What you need:
Slips of scrap paper (any color)
Pair of scissors
A 3-ring binder
Baseball card sleeves
Sticker storage sleeves
Unmounted stamps
cheap ink pad
cleaning method for stamps (i.e. Stamp cleaner)
To begin, you will want to pull out all your unmounted stamps, ink them up and begin stamping the images on your scrap paper.
When you have completed that task, using your scissors cut out each individual stamped image.
Take out your storage sleeves – sticker and baseball.
Insert those scrap paper images into the different sleeves. The reason for the different types of storage sleeves is because unmounted stamps come in all shapes and sizes. You want to be able to find a slot for each stamp.
Next, clean off your unmounted stamps with a stamp cleaner and allow to dry.
Once the stamps are cleaned off, place them in the storage sleeves behind the stamped image you made.
After all the unmounted stamps have been put in their new storage spot, insert the page protectors into your three ring binder.
At this point it is optional to either take a permanent marker, or a label maker and create a label for the outside binding of the binder. “Unmounted Stamps” is the perfect title for this binder.
You can then place the binder on your shelf with your other binders, books and magazines. Finding the perfect stamp for that card or layout you are creating has never been easier.
Do you have any ideas for unmounted stamp storage?
For more terrific articles on scrapbooking storage, as well as additional upcoming articles on stamp storage you can visit my blog, or the scrapbooking blog here at families.com.