Picture this: you’ve made a beautiful card front and as you stamp your last image, the clear photopolymer stamp falls off the block and smudges your hard work. There are ink boogers everywhere. Of course, you can salvage it with some strategically placed die cuts and embellishments. But you still feel disappointed as it wasn’t the card that you planned.
Why does the stamp fall off the block?
It is usually one of two reasons:
- The photopolymer (clear acrylic) stamp is dirty or
- Your block is dirty or has residue on it.
Another reason may be high humidity. I can’t help with changing the humidity but I can offer solutions for the first two reasons.
Cleaning your photopolymer stamps
Most of the time you can get away with cleaning your Photopolymer stamps with a Stampin’ Shammy or Stampin’ Mist with your Stampin’ Scrub. There are other times like when you’ve been heat embossing or using baby wipes to clean your stamps residue builds up and you need to clean them a bit more thoroughly. Versamark and Embossing powder leave a powdery residue that impacts the stamp’s ability to cling to the block. But there is an easy fix with a few everyday household items.
You will need:
- Mild Dishwashing Liquid – I use the Earth Choice Citrus one but you can use whatever is under your kitchen sink.
- A soft clean toothbrush – not one you intend to use to clean your teeth
- A large bowl or container – you can use the kitchen or laundry sink but there is a risk you could lose a small stamp down the drain.
- Very warm water (not boiling – you don’t want to melt your stamps)
- A microfibre, cotton, or linen tea towel – use any towel that doesn’t “fluff”
Now you’ve got your supplies and your photopolymer stamp set, you can get started.
- Squirt a little dishwashing liquid into your bowl and a little on the toothbrush bristles
- Top up the bowl with warm/hot water
- Soak your stamps in the water for a minute or two
- Gently clean the grooves of each stamp with the toothbrush and scrub the back of the stamp too
- Wash the stamps in the soapy water and then remove all the stamps from the water – make sure you have them all.
- Pour out the soapy water, wash any suds out of the bowl, and refill the bowl with clean water.
- Rinse your stamps in clean water and dry them with your non-fluff towel
Just like that, you’re done! Your photopolymer stamps are squeaky clean.
Whatever you do, DO NOT use this cleaning method with your red rubber stamps, or any stamps that have foam between the stamp and the label. For information on how to clean your rubber stamps check out this blog post.
Now let’s clean the blocks
If you don’t keep your blocks clean, you won’t get the best results. My blocks regularly get covered in glue, dust, ink, Wink of Stella, oil from my skin, hand cream, and goodness knows what else. All these things impact how well your stamps cling to them. So we want to address all of that at the same time.
With it being the start of a new month, starting with clean acrylic blocks makes me feel much better! Many stampers that they throw their acrylic blocks in the dishwasher. My experience with that has been less than ideal. I don’t know if it was soap or water temperature, but my blocks were cloudy and trashed afterwards.
Get Rid of the Gunk First
Let’s start by cleaning off any sticky residue that may be on there. My favorite thing for this is cotton wool pad and isopropyl or rubbing alcohol. Stay away from products like Goo Gone. They may make your acrylic blocks go cloudy and they’ll be more translucent than transparent. Transparent blocks are a must.
Quick Tip: when cleaning lots of blocks, stand you blocks on the narrow edge after wiping it down – this way you know which ones you’ve done.
Bath time
There’s nothing like a good soak to feel really clean and relaxed clean. So it’s time to give your blocks a little pampering. Fill the sink with really warm water and your mild dishwashing soap (Dawn or Earth Choice are both nice and gentle) and let them luxiate in the bubbles for about 10 to 15 minutes. Then, it’s time to give them a good rub with a soft cleaning cloth. I actually use a hand crochet dishcloth that my friend, Jan made me. Works a treat When the surfaces feel clean, let them soak about five more minutes.
Rinse And Dry
Once your blocks done having their final pampering soak, drain your sink and rinse your blocks. When all the bubbles and gunk is gone, pop them on a linen, mircofibre or non-fluffy towel or tea towel to drain and dry. (don’t use a fluffly bath or tea towel as the fibres stick to the blocks). When I am short on time (or feeling super lazy), I just pop them on the dishdraining rack and let them air dry.
Now they’re dry, all that’s left to do is to put them away. I keep mine in a clear block storage caddy and the etxras in a drawer. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, so they don’t get dusty. When I kept them on my desktop, they’d get dusty and that dust transferred to my stamps if I forgot to wipe them off before I used them.
Secondly, I like them stored by size so I can easily grab what I need.
You can clean the plates for your Stamparatus, the exact same way!
That’s all there is to cleaning acrylic blocks and photopolymer for stamping best results! Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below!
Until next time… Happy Creating!
Chrissy
