Working with unmounted stamps

Grow Your Own Flower Garden stamp set of 8

The more I learn about rubber stamping, the more I get into the usage end of things as well as the design and production. As you may know from previous posts, I've been wrestling with mounts, trying to find the perfect one and the best way to print/varnish/etc. them. I am now discovering on message boards and stamp sites how many people prefer stamps to be unmounted for easier storage, less cost and usability. One woman used unmounted face stamps to wrap around her fabric doll faces (the effect was quite beautiful!). Another stamper talked about how she liked unmounted stamps because she was very particular about her mounts - in her case, they had to all be the same exact brand of wood mount. Many others liked to use them with acrylic mounts and EZMount. Looking into this technique, I see this would be a marvelous way to use my flower garden stamp sets like the one above. You can attach several stamps on one block creating a pattern.

This makes me want to take mounts out of the equation all together. Kristin Lee's stamps were unmounted and I have sold several of the unmounted flower garden sets. (I need to make more!). Now I want to buy some acrylic blocks and play! My stamps are thicker rubber than the ones in the video and that extra thickness gives you the cushioning you need so you won't need that layer of foam. I could check out the EZMount, but I think that double sided tape will work just fine. In fact, I've got an ATG gun and that will work even better because it sticks great then rubs off like rubber cement.

Yay! So that's that. I've got some new one of a kind stamps to share and I'm going to be listing them unmounted. Some sweet stamps are coming soon - stay tuned!