Lisa Johnson (Lisa Lisa on Splitcoast) was asking how others store their clear stamps. I recently acquired 6 new clear stamp sets and I too wondered what on earth to do to store them.
Most clear stamps come on a clear acetate sheet in a clear envelope w/ another acetate sheet that has all the images in black on it. This is all well and good but once you start accumulating several sets it gets to be a total pain in the @$$ to have to constantly peel open the envelope, pull out the acetate sheets, peel off the image sheet, then peel off the stamps you want to use. And then you have to do it all over again to put it all back. This whole process was driving me bonkers.
I really enjoy my clear stamps (tho I highly doubt I'll ever give up rubber and wood mounted - but the clear stamps *are* fun to play with!!) but the whole process in using them was getting really tiresome. So... I came up with this (and this isn't a new idea - I got the idea for using CD cases from SCS) and it is SOOOOO much better!!
All my clear sets except one are from Inky Antics (the other one is from Autumn Leaves) and all but the AL one fit 2 sets to a case.
This is the Autumn Leaves set. I cut the acetate sheet that had all the images on it and used double sided tape to stick it to the *inside* of the case. (I had originally thought to stamp all the images on Stazon on the outside of the case - however solvent ink is *not* recommended for clear stamps - and it does really stain them and it's a *very* time consuming thing to do!!) The stamps are then pressed over their own acetate image - making it easy to know where they belong.
With clear stamps you can stick them to both sides of the cases as they're thin enough that they won't touch. You can also do this w/ unmounted rubber - however if the rubber also has cling foam you can only use one side of the CD case as they are too thick and the case won't shut.
With the Inky Antics clear sets I can fit one set on each side of the CD case.
I cut a piece of (cheap) white CS the same size as the inside of the CD case (it was about 5.5" x 4.75") - which makes it a lot easier to see the stamps inside as it separates the two layers.
I cut the labels off that came with each set and used Tombow Metal Glue to adhere each label to the end of the CD case (the top set's label is on the left and the bottom set is on the right).
I bought 4 Stackebo CD holders from IKEA and screwed them into the wall beside the shelves where I store my SU sets. They fit *perfectly* there right beside the closet and each one holds 20 CD cases - so I can store up to 160 stamp sets (if I fit 2 sets per case) in a very small amount of space.
I paid I think $6 Canadian each for them.
You can't order the Stackebo items off IKEA's website - you have to go to the store to buy them. It's definitely a cheap and simple storage solution as it takes up very little wall space! :D
BTW I got all my cases by emptying out all our CD's from the ones we already had lol - we keep all our CD's in the big zipper cases so they were wasting space anyway. I did find this website BlankDVDMedia - where you can order CD (and DVD) cases in bulk. I'm sure there are a lot of other sites out there too (including e*bay).
