Stampin’ Up! sells two kinds of stamps: cling stamps and clear stamps. They are both wonderful!
CLING STAMPS
Cling stamps are made of red rubber and they are the classic stamps from childhood for many of us. I often call them rubber stamps, but you will see them listed as cling stamps in the catalog and on the website. Stampin’ Up! makes their own stamps in Utah and it’s an interesting process to watch.
When you receive your red rubber stamps, you get a sheet of red rubber with the stamps laser cut around and a sheet of stickers to add to the back of your stamps. All you have to do is pop them out and remove the backing paper and add the stickers from the sheet to the back of the stamp. My video below will show you how I do this to ensure that I get those labels on straight and right side up! You then place them in the case label side down and they will stick to the inside of the case for safe keeping.
The labels are used when you attach the stamp to a clear block and got to stamp. The label allows you to see how you are orienting that image on your card stock as you stamp. You want to make sure that you get it on straight and right side up!!
You will notice that the cling stamps have the red rubber layer, a foam layer, then the sticky layer. The foam is there to cushion the rubber so that when you stamp you get a nice even stamped image without blobs of ink.
Stampin’ Up! has high quality stamps that stamp beautifully…barring user error of course!
CLEAR STAMPS
The clear stamps are also called photopolymer stamps. They come between two plastic sheets. You can choose to leave them between the plastic sheets or you can remove them from the plastic and stick them to the inside of the stamp case.
You will notice that these have no foam layer and there are no stickers to attach to them. You just place them on the clear block directly and ink them up!
Since they have no foam, you may want to use a piece of foam under your card stock to cushion the stamp as you do your stamping. Most of the time, I don’t really find this to be necessary. The photopolymer stamps are made from a high quality material and they stamp nices…again barring user error!
When I do use foam, I use my Stampin’ Pierce mat or a piece of fun foam from the craft store.
Why use two different kind of materials for stamps?
I attended an event and someone ask the Stampin’ Up! admins this question. They said that for the stamps with lots of detail, they always use the red rubber because it stamps fine details better every time. You get nice crisp images even with fussy art details on the stamps with the cling stamps.
The photopolymer material is used for stamps with less fussy details.
Check out my video:
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