More Nano tape play and a surprising result!

First, I gotta apologize for the lack of interesting photos with this whole Nano tape thing. It’s just hard to show and the photos aren’t exciting. But stick with me (see what I did there? LOL!) and I think it is worth it.

First, let’s wrap up the storage issues – Nano tape cling with a death grip to plastic packaging. But it holds and yet releases quite nicely when stored in or on plastic bags like sandwich bags. Leaving the Nano tape covered blocks on a baggie overnight and it still releases easily. So yeah, that’s my storage of choice.

I stored the two block I covered back to back in the baggie and it worked great. Still a little tricky to extract them from inside the bag cause it’s a tiny Snack-sized one, but it does release.

So two other ideas I wanted to play with. I thought MAYBE that you could stamp with the Nano tape, and you can, kinda, but it isn’t a super crisp image. I didn’t want to waste it so I was only playing with scraps from my block-coverage.

I also wondered if you could die-cut it. My idea was IF you could stamp and IF you could die cut, could you then die cut a STAMP to match said die? Yeah, nope. Didn’t snap a photo, but while yes you could die-cut a shape, if was stuck to paper (cause I knew the cover-film would not die cut with a traditional thin die) lots of the Nano tape squished out of the sides. It wasn’t pretty! I was curious, cause they sell about 2 inch wide Nano tape and that size seemed like it could offer up some interesting possibilities.

As I already had the tiny squares cut, I had a moment – was it possible that only a tiny square of Nano tape (rather than a fully covered mounting block) could work? I thought perhaps with a stamp mat it might, so I gave it a go.

It worked, kinda, but I smeared it by rocking the stamp. Not worth showing, but this very much is! I scattered the small squares on the block and used a stamp that I felt would be a bit of a challenge to stamp clearly:

Brace yourself. This really is a surprise!

Crikey. And here I wasted all that tape by covering the block! What I would say is this: you could easily try (on scrap paper, obviously) stamping with a single strip of Nano tape on a block and see if it works. If not, add more small squares in key areas (like for this stamp those pesky little pointy … feet? arms? whatever) and then peel off the tape and store it for re-use later.

I have to say I like the full-block coverage, as for maybe 85% of my stamps, the very small and medium size blocks I’ve covered will do the job. For any of the really LARGE stamps, I would use scraps or small pieces and def. use a stamping mat or something with a bit of give, like my cork tile pieces.

So one more experiment – I thought maybe I could mount the grey cling material to the Nano tape, cause I have a TON of the Tim Holtz stamps that nothing will bring back their stick. I wasn’t keen to have to coat the back of every one with Tack-It! so I had a go. Not a good idea. I know this is going to be nearly impossible to see, especially if you are on a phone, but yes, the grey stuff clings to the Nano tape. But when you are finally able to peel that sucker off, for me the Nano tape buckled and bulged.

To be fair, it was this exact buckle and bulge that made me carry on and test just the tiny squares – and I do believe a few squares might hold the grey clink stamps well enough to be able to stamp with them, but I have to put this aside for the moment and maybe have one last play later. If it works I’ll add it to my WOYWW post tomorrow.

I think there are potentially 100s of interesting uses for Nano Tape (not sponsored!) but this one seems like a universally useful for stampers one. What about using a tiny square or two to mount those lost-their-stick stamps in your storage system? Or sticking a ruler or a special pen to your desk? Temporarily mount some art to your wall? Hold your cranked knitting machine to the table so it doesn’t scoot about? I have to say I just love this stuff and I will keep a roll handy and reach for it often!

Woyww tomorrow!

Using Nano tape with unmounted stamps – or cling that have lost their stick

Nano tape is pretty cool stuff. I bought a pack of two rolls, one for the Hubster, cause I thought he might find some uses for it when mounting technology items in the car, and one for me cause I had an idea.

If you have read here for long you know I hate mounting unmounted stamps. But especially when requesting unavailable in the UK items to be shipped from the USA, unmounted stamps are a helluva lot cheaper to send. So I have a lot.

In the past I have used a hack that I loved (using the otherwise useless Creative Palette and Tack-It! Over and Over to create a mount.

And that does work well, but how many people actually have an old Creative Palette they can cut up and use? Probably not many.

Well, I had a play and Nano tape works just as well. I covered the mounting block with the tape then the stamps, both unmounted red rubber and clear cling that have lost their stick work perfectly well. Impossible in still images to demonstrate a non-cling cling stamp, but here goes…

My first instinct is with Nano tape you need to cover, pretty edge-to-edge, the mounting block. Obviously to get a good stamped impression you need uniform pressure, and I feared you won’t get that if you just added a strip of Nano tape in the middle of the block.

I figured using a small block to begin with, to work out the kinks, made sense. And it performed flawlessly!

The issues you can see with the paper (that black mark and the divots in the centre of the flower) are because it was a random scrap on my desk, not because of any stamping issues.

Now, there are a few things to note. I am testing to see if storing the Nano-tape coated block will work on a few things (a scrap of plastic packaging, a Ziplock/sandwich bag, one of the bags from the LFT test kits, even stuck to another block) and will report back. But as the tape is WASHABLE and REUSABLE it might matter less.

I feel like there is more experiment needed. I’m going to have a bash with a few things and see…Watch this space!