Friday 12 February 2016

clearstamps maintenance and shammy review

Sometimes clearstamps lose their stickiness, usually this is easily remedied with a little soapbath.
I put my stamsets in a box if I find one or more our not clinging well to my blocks anymore.
Then one evening I go trough all the sets.
I'm not the kind of person that gets everything out to clean one stamp, sorry.

I prep a little bowl with warm water and a drop of dish washer soap/detergent.
Only needs one drop.
I wash the stamps with my fingers. You can feel them going from gritty to smooth again.
I rest them on a sponge cloth to soak up most water and them use a shammy to clean and dry it.

My shammy is really old and it was four times as big as you see in the video. I cut the big sheet up into four, easier to handle for this small jobs. They're used to clean windows or glass surfaces, like tables, doors or showcabinets. Also you can make it go further by cutting it up, or if you have friends over for a stampfest you'll need more ;-)

They come in natural and in an artificial kind. The natural is made of skin or leather or something, not sure, they are more expensive, work the same but they get icky when you wet them, a bit slimey and I don't like to use them for that reason ;-)

I bought two new shammy (shammies ?) today, one says shammy the other says chamoix in English.
the one with the little holes has two sheets in the pack for €1.39 the other , power shammy, is  €1.29, and has one in the pack. I don't remember how much my old (blue) one is, I had it for more than a decade I think.
These can go in the washing machine, but I don't know how clean they'll get, especially if you use archival ink or StazOn per example. Never washed mine and these two are new, so...i'll let you know ;-)

Shammies go hard when they dry up, but you moisten them and they go plaible and soft again, squeeze out the most water and clean your stamps.

No more fuzzy bits or hairs from kitchen towels and or baby wipes. I know there should be fuzzy free baby wipes, I haven't found them yet.

Also this is much better for the environment! no more wasted babywipes and kitchen towels. Also cheaper to run especially if you cut it up.

There are companies making stamp shammies, but they are much more expensive and although I don't know, I assume they work the same, in any case these from the supermarket  (and Action) work perfectly.




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