Ink Pads

[Bill]

I am confused relative to all the various types of ink pads that are on the market. For simplicity purposes I have stayed with the old faithfuls, just plain pigment ink (some dye ink but I use dye very little) by Color Box and some Versa Color. We now have access to Adirondack, Ranger, Brilliance, etc. Are these new ones merely different manufacturers getting into the business or do they have special applications. How have some of you old tyme or courageous stampers used these new ink pads and is it really worth investing in them? Thanks.;)

[i.r.stamper]

YES YES AND AGAIN YES!!!!

Ok, pigment ink pads......when I started off stamping I preferred to use pigment pads. They did most of the things that dye pads did, but you could also emboss them! And I still love my pigment pads, I love doing direct to paper techniques with them, and of course, they're still the best for embossing.

Now, along came the Brilliance ink pads. Still a pigment ink, but with a difference. Brilliance ink will dry on materials that your regular, Color Box inks won't dry on. Like plastic, transparencies, wood, metal, glass.....and the most important part (at least in the way I use them ) is that one you heat set them, not emboss them, simply heat them with the heat gun.....they become permanent!!! This means that you can stamp an image with a Brilliance ink pad, heat set it, then WATERCOLOR OVER THAT IMAGE WITHOUT ANY BLEEDING OF COLOR!!!!! This also makes them great for stamped collage work, as the collage medium won't cause your ink to run!

But then I started seeing all the different colors that are available in dye ink, and simply had to try my hand with them! And I LOVE them! Adirondack Ink pads happen to be my favorite, simply because I love their color line! They're a highly pigmented ink (now by pigmented, I mean that there's a lot of color 'pigment' in the ink, not that the ink is pigment ink like Brilliance of Color Box, K?), and the colors are on the warm side......something I hadn't worked with before. (I always seemed to tend towards the cooler color shades.) Dye ink is a lot easier to blend, it's easier to stipple, and it can't be beat for brayering! Pigment ink is thicker than dye ink, and tends to make your brayer skip, or slide over the paper......NOT the intended result! And pigment ink will not dry on glossy paper (EXCEPT for the Brilliance line, that is!), another thing to keep in mind when chosing your ink pads.

Now, there are a lot of different kinds of dye ink on the market. But there are really only two 'types'.....regular dye ink, which will run if you get it wet (like with a blender pen, watercolor, ect)...and permanent dye ink, which is permanent when dry. What makes each ink different is the color assortment available, what they look like once dry, ect. In other words, some inks dry 'chalky', giving the look of a good artist's pastel....other dry very opague, showing nothing of the paper they're stamped on.....yet others dry more transparent, so that the color of the paper can alter the color of the ink. And each ink line has it's own color line up, some might be close to a color made by a different manufacturer, but none are exactly the same.

Which ink should you use? THAT depends on how you're going to use it! And after you've narrowed it down to whether or not it needs to be a permanent ink, then all you have to decide is what COLOR you like the best! And go from there!

Boy, hope this didn't just make you even MORE confused.....:(

[Bill]

Wow! Thanks. I guess the answer to my question is yes and yes. More manufacturers are getting into the business and yes there is a difference.

I really appreciate the time you took explaining the differences. Guess I need to expand my thinking about inks and simultaneously expand the appearance of my cards.

Thanks again.:D