One of my favourite things to do in my scrapbooks is stamp. I love it. I mainly use alphabet stamps to create titles and journalling, but stamping is a great way to create accents, as well. Over the last few years, I’ve found tons of great sites on stamping, and I thought I’d share them with you over the course of the next few weeks, starting with inks and related mediums.
Jennifer Sizemore wrote a great article on Scrapjazz.com on Stamping in Scrapbooks, where she went through many of the basics of ink and techniques. It’s well worth a look through, especially if you are new to the stamping world. Although not included, one of my favourite brands of ink pads to use are the Distress Ink by Tim Holtz, because they have wonderfully large raised pad, they are re-inkable, safe for photos, workable, and I just love the colours. Tim Holtz offers some tips on using Distress Ink on his site—be sure to check out his gallery while you are there too!!
In the grand scheme of things, I have tried a lot of ink pads. The most important thing to me is that the ink pads have a removable lid, and a raise ink pad. Both of these attributes make direct-to-paper application much easier, such as when you are inking the edges of paper, or simply smearing the ink pad across the page to create a background.
Last year a professional stamper passed on a bit of info that I found quite interesting. Generally speaking, ink pads with clear lids tend to be pigment inks which are suitable for use with embossing powders, while those with opaque lids tend to be other forms of ink, such as dye-based, which are not suitable for use with embossing powders. I remember immediately going home to check all my stamp pads, and sure enough, she was right. However, I must admit that I generally use Tsukineko embossing ink with coloured embossing powder. You can, however, use clear embossing powder with coloured ink to create similar effects, which is great if you already own a lot of different colours of ink, and are just starting to get into embossing.
Another medium which is in the lime light at the moment is acrylic paint. It’s available either in the craft section, or you can buy artists’ acrylic at your local art shop. They both do the same job, however the craft acrylics are much more diluted (and ready to apply) and more costly in the long run. This is a great medium for use with foam stamps, because it’s easy to apply, easy to clean, and gives an opaque effect that sits on the paper (where as inks tend to settle into the paper). I’ve tried acrylics with rubber stamps, and it does work, however they can be a little slippery to stamp, and acrylic paint isn’t as easy to clean off rubber.
A couple more things before I close for today. To keep your inkpads at their best, store them upside down. This way, all the ink will be spread evenly at the top of the ink pad when you want to stamp. Also, when you are inking your stamp, place your stamp on your table image side up and dab your ink pad onto the image. There are several advantages to doing it this way. First, you can see what areas of your stamp need to be inked. Second, it allows you to be able to use any size ink pad on any size stamp. And finally, you simply don’t need to press at hard to get full coverage, which means less ink will be spread into the negative areas of your stamp, the stamp will be easier to clean, and you will waste less ink.
I hope you’ve found this information helpful, and that it encourages you to try stamping, or even try it again. For more info on the layout featured for this article, check it out in my gallery