Stamping essentials?

[Marie]

;) I'm looking for recommendations about what sort of ink stamps or other tools I should put together for myself. I love stamping and colouring and have some gorgeous Anna Griffins stamps as well as the lovely ones from Graphicus. The only ink pads I've got are a couple of small ones that came with my AG set so I want to build up a collection over the next few months. I've tried stamping on things like acetate and vellum but obviously the results aren't very good unless you use specific inks. Also my results in general aren't very good when there is a lot of detail on the stamp.
So for now I'm thinking that I should start off getting a couple of Stazon as I understand that this works on vellum and acetate, as well as something like versafine or something similar for more detailed stamps. Phree suggested that Welly use a brayer which sounds like it would be helpful as well for detailed stamps, I've seen Glenda use them before.
What else would people suggest? How do people get on with say stamping using the glimmer mists or other spray mediums? Any ideas welcomed.:)

[Anne]

Deffo Stazon in black and maybe dark purple as a softer alternative. As well as being fab for stamping on acetate it's by far the best ink to use if you want to water colour your image.

For me the ink pad I couldn't manage without is the Versamark watermark pad.

[Phree]

Warning : Very Long Post Alert - prolly best to move on unless you really want to know somthing about how inks work

Understanding inks.... now there's a question and a half! Marie I doubt if you realise how large a topic you have opened up. The inks you buy really depend on what you want to be able to do with them, so here is a basic guide to the properties of inks:

The most important of all properties is QUALITY - you get what you pay for, so don't get sucked into buying cheap pads such as the "Ink It" pads". I know I am not the only stamper on this forum to say they are less than happy with the results obtained from pads like that. However lots of the good quality ink pad manufacturers offer tiny pads - the 1 inch square cubes that have Versacolor ink in them, the Cats Eyes that are like little eye shapes. Typically these small pads cost maybe £1.30 - £1.50 each, so it's a good way to build up a selection of colours when you are starting out without paying £4 - £5 per pad for full size ink pads - or there are the boxed sets such as the "Petal Point" ink pads or the long trays from Color Box that have about 10 or 12 removable small ink pads in them.

Now for the more technical stuff :

Inks fall into 2 categorys based on what colours them - Dye or Pigment. Dye inks usually come on felt pads, pigment on spongy foam pads. Then there is another division related to the carrier for the colour - water, solvent or, as in the case of Versafine, an oil base.

Dye inks - the colours are less vibrant than pigment, and most all of them are fast drying with the exception of Tim Holtz Distress Inks which were purposely designed to have a longer open time (open time is the time the ink remains wet enough for stuff like embossing powder to cling to the stamped impresson)

Dye inks include Adirondack dye ink from Ranger, the new Memento Ink pads from Tsukineko and various others. These ones are water based and not permanent, use them to watercolour at your peril as the water in your paints will cause the inks to bleed even tho it had dried before you start painting. Additionally bear in mind that any water based ink will not dry on stuff like acetate, tho dye inks will dry on glossy card stock.

Pigment inks are also water based and therefore not permanent, but they have a longer open time and will often not dry at all on coated card such as glossy, and they certainly won't dry on things like acetate. However the colours are more vibrant and you can use them to heat emboss because of their longer open time. You can also force them to dry on somethings by heat setting them with a quick blast from a heat tool - the kind used for heat embossing. Now, because of the longer open time a good mix of colours in pigment inks such as Versacolor, the new Adirondack Pigment range, or PetalPoint ink pads can be quite useful for a new stamper because if you have a heat tool and just one pot of clear embossing powder you can emboss in what ever colour your underlying ink happens to be thus avoiding the need to buy lots of different colours of Embossing powder. Once heat embossed the ink is sealed into the embossing and you can go ahead and safely paint with watercolours etc. One final property which can be attributed to the longer open time one has with Pigment inks, is their blendability when applying them direct to paper or with things like sponges and ink applicators such as the Color Box Stylus tool.

In the range of inks that use pigment to colour the ink you will also come across Chalk or Fluid Chalk inks (the Cats Eyes by Color Box for example) These have much the same properties as regular pigment inks but also have chalk in them to make the in opaque. This means you can stamp onto dark card and the ink wont disappear into the card but drys with a chalky look to it.

Then we move on to the permanent inks such as Stazon (Tsukineko) or Ranger's Archival Inks, these are dye based but are carried on a solvent which means they are pemanent and will dry on most anything including acetate, metals, ceramics etc. They are generally no good for heat embossing as they dry to fast, tho if you are quick it can be done - I have done it myself but that's another story. You will find you need a specialist cleaning soloution such as Stazon Cleaner in order to get your stamped clean after using these inks.

Do not confuse Versafine with Stazon, it is not a permanent ink that drys on anything so no use for acetate, vellum and some coated card stocks. However, because it has an oil base, it does resist water so it is excellent for watercolouring. I have found however that it does not work well with the type of colour pencils used with low odour white spirit to blend the pencil colours. The wax in the pencil lead seems to cause the ink to smear much as watercolour paints will cause bleeding with water based inks. Versafine is however considered to be the ink that gives the sharpest impression when you need an ink that can cope with lots of fine detail in your stamp.

Finally there are embossing pads, clear one's such as Versamark or there are some which have a light tint to the ink to make it easier to see where you have stamped. I avoid the tinted ones because the tint is not always as invisible as you might wish. The main property of Versamark is it's stickyness - it has gycerine in it to make more tacky - this means it stays open for heat embossing longer than any of the other inks. It can also be used to create a "watermark" effect simply by stamping it onto your card and leaving it to dry - you will see your stamped image show as a slightly deeper shade than the original card.

I won't go into the realms of rainbow pads such as Kaleidacolor, pearlescent pads such as Brilliance, metallics pad such as Encore or interference inks such as Opalite - I think that for now I have given you enough to ponder on!


OK so there you have it - brief guide to what inks do. Now it's up to you to decide which one's have the properties you most desire and you do that by figuring out what you like to do most with your stamps - ie watercolour paints means you need an ink that either drys permanent or will resist water.

From reading what you said about what you enjoy doing then I would recommend you definately want a Black Stazon pad - essential if you don't want to have the colour bleed or run when you are colouring or making it wet with glitter glues etc. Also essential if you want to be able to stamp on thinks like acetate. I am not so sure I agree with Anne about the Purple being a good second choice - my preference is to use gray for a softer more pencil drawn look to the stamped image, but as I say that's a personal preference. With regard to Versfine - again I would suggest you wait, Stazon does a pretty good job with most stamps except perhaps for the extremely fine detail ones. so unless you find you really cannot acheive a result with Stazon then save your pennies for some other kind of inks or a wider choice of colours just now.

If you don't yet own a heat gun, then Versamark is probably an ink you can live without until you are ready to enter the realms of heat embossing.

You also mentioned stamping with Glimmer Mists, yes it can be done, but it's a bit "techniquey" and requires a heat gun. You might be better getting comfy stamping with regular inks before attempting stamping with Glimmer Mists.

As for other inks, then it's really depends on what you want to do with them and that is why I have tried to outline the properties of the various inks so you can make a more informed choice when you buy.

One thing I would mention - don't be put off by the price of things like the Color Box Petal Point ink pads - they sell at around £12 and when I started stamping I recall thinking "eeeeek that's expensive"... I was too confused by all the other knowledge I was trying to absorb to spot that they are quite a good way of obtaining a variety of colours to play with - you get 8 little "petals" in each one so they are not such an expensive investment after all!

Sorry this is such a long post, but at the end of the day I can't tell you what inks to buy unless I know exactly what you want to do with them - but if I share what I know about the inks then you won't need me or anyone else to tell you what to buy as you will be able to make informed decisions of your own. So long as you buy decent quality ink pads there really is no "right" or "wrong" ink..... just the "right ink for the job".... or if you choose badly... the "wrong ink for the job"

[Marie]

Thank you Anne and Phree for your suggestions! Phree you should write a book on it, in fact I've got Glenda's introduction to ink pads but was a bit confused after reading it. Your post above has really helped explain things more clearly, I really appreciate it.
I've been playing with basic stamps on paper and experimenting with water colour and pencils for normal colouring effects. Also I like the idea of doing backgrounds on things like vellum or vellum so for now will be looking for things that will give me a good basic image. Even using the couple of little stamps I own I've had some nice results so that's an area I'm going to experiment with.
I'd already thought that using things like the glimmer mists would be a bit beyond me for now until I'm a bit more experienced, but will definately be investing in some stazon, definately black, I'll look at purple and grey as well and other colours. And definately some cleaner!
I think I'm not going to try embossing stuff for now, so will stick to the basics and not worry about getting heat gun or anything like that. Also have a budget so getting the basics will probably use that up for now. I'm sure that when I've read your post a couple more times I'll have a few questions but otherwise thank you so much for taking the trouble to write it.

[sheilaj]

the only thing that I would add to Phree's lucid exposition is that a good stamping surface helps immeasureably. You can buy a foam stamping surface that goes with the see D's stamps and other cling stamps that are used non an acrylic block but I find that an old phone directory or yellow pages works really well both with cling stamps and the kind that come n a wooden base, also the foam stamps that are becoming popular.

[Marie]

a good stamping surface helps immeasureably
Thanks for that suggestion Sheilaj, actually I was thinking about that this afternoon. I got my Anna Griffin stamps out for a play, they are very detailed and I was thinking that if I can get a good result using them then I should be able to get a decent result with other stamps. I hadn't realised that there is a knack to stamping, getting teh right amount of ink on the stamp, using an all over even pressure etc. Anyway I was starting to get some reasonable results earlier today and it occurred to me that the one thing I hadn't tried was a different surface, so I'm going to try that next time. It's not that easy though, looks easy but it's not!

[Phree]

Marie, I think I have said this before, you get too worked up and worry too much. Stamping is easy and it seems to me you are making it far more complicated in your head than it needs to be.

The most common beginner mistake is to get ink on the outer edges of the stamp - ie outside of the actual image where the outline of the image has been cut out of the rubber. This results in smudges of ink getting onto whatever you are stamping onto - which is not always a total diaster if you are planning to cut the image out as you would cut away the smudges but is certainly no good if you are not planning on cutting the image out. There are a number of reasons this might happen and sometimes it's cheap stamps that are as much to blame as anything. However your Anna Griffin stamps should be of a decent quality so the only other reason it might happen is inking the stamp carelessly - something I doubt you are guilty of!

I am assuming that you have seen enough stamping demos on TV by now to know that it's easier to lay the stamp on it's back on your table and then bring the pad to the stamp to ink it. Tap the pad LIGHTLY - don't bang the ink pad down hard onto the stamp and keep tapping until you can see that the image is completely inked up and that you haven't missed a wee corner or edge through simply not moving the pad over that particular spot. If you can see the image looks nice and inky and you have no ink smudged on the edges of the rubber then you should be good to go.

One other thing, with Pigment inks which tend to have foam pads it can be a little trickier not to smudge the edge of the stamp. The felt pads that Dye inks come on are pretty firm so they don't squish down onto the stamp so much when you tap - with foam ink pads it's easier to squish the pad down a bit to hard and thus sqidge ink where you don't want it. Better to keep tapping lightly several more times than to tap too hard and end up with smudges where you don't want them. I am guessing you took our advice and invested in some Stazon when you were at Graphicus - that's a nice firm felt pad - compare that to any other pads you have and you will see if you have any foam ones.

Once you are all inked up..... just place the stamp down cleanly then ensure you always keep pressure on it with one hand while using the other to apply pressure to all over the image area if it's a big stamp. If you need to you can switch hands, but make sure when you swap hands you hold the stamp still with both hands before removing your grip with the hand you now want to lift off the stamp. Once you are sure you have given all areas of the image a good press lift the stamp straight up in nice crisp move, don't let it drag across the page.

As for the surface - well common sense is the key really.... don't go stamping on some lumpy bumpy old second hand table that is full of scratches that you might be using as a craft table because it won't matter if you stain it, scratch it or whatever. You do need to smooth surface but honestly I stamp nearly all the time straight onto my cutting mat which sits all the time at my workspace - my workspace is actually some of that worktop stuff you buy for kitchens - hubby made me a place to craft by fixing a length of that to the wall in our spare room and adding legs at intervals to give it support.

The main reason people use extra cushioning in the form of stamping mats, piles of magazines placed under their card stock etc is for particulary tricky stamps such as some of the photo realistic ones, or ones such as Welly posted about recently where there are large solid areas on the rubber.

Good luck and let us know how you get on...... oh and STOP WORRYING...... relax and it will come naturally and you will look back and laugh at how difficult you once thought this all was. ;)