Clear Mount Stamps - Pros and Cons

Now that Stampin' Up! is offering clear mount stamps beginning in the new Sale-A-Bration and Occasions Mini catalogs coming in January I thought I would do a list of what I believe are the pros and cons of clear mounts.

First of all don't confuse "clear mounts" with "clear stamps". The stamps themselves will continue to be the high quality rubber stamps that SU has always offered and in my opinion they have the best quality stamps available. The mounting block is clear allowing you to see where you will be placing your stamp. I have tried clear stamps but never clear mounts so I purchased one of the sets and the clear blocks to see how I would like them. Here is what I have determined from using this set:

PROS:

• Same high quality rubber as all SU wood mounted stamps
• Clear blocks were very nice, they had a great feel to them and have the same ergonomic groove as the wood blocks, but with the clear block the groove is on all sides. I like to have the groove on my wood block at the top and bottom of my stamp image, but sometimes that is not how must mount your stamp so you end up with the groove to the left and right of the image. Not an issue with the clear blocks.
• Easy placement of image on your project. However, I did have an issue with one of the stamps because I got the image sticker just a little bit crooked. I just gently pulled it up and repositioned it and it worked great.
• Less space needed for storage. The sets come in very slim cases about the size of a DVD case. They have the image on both the front panel and the side panel so you can find the set very easily.

CONS:

• The only con I see with these stamps is that it might be a little cumbersome to change the stamps out on the blocks if you are stamping a lot of cards with the same design.

I think these are great and after ordering my first set I proceeded to order several more. I hope you'll try them soon.