Scrapbooking Tips
One of the most common questions asked about stamping in your scrapbook
concerns the different types of inks and how they perform. Here is a quick
review of inks and how they compare in scrapbooking.
Types of inks for stamps:
* Pigment Ink-dries slower, more vibrant
colors and usually opaque so they are best for darker papers, can be
embossed, usually permanent, and cleans up easily with cleaner. Virtually
all pigment inks are acid free!
Embossed pigment ink is the first choice of most scrapbookers for
consistent and safe inking with archival preservation.
* Dye Ink-dries faster, permanent, cleans up
easily, and comes in lots of colors, most of these are acid free, but look
for labeling to be safe. The ones that say non-toxic and don't say acid
free are often acid free BUT they fade rather quickly so they are not a
good choice for your scrapbooks.
Save those for the kids or shorter-term projects.
* Office supply store ink: doesn't always
remain color fast, not a big variety of colors, rarely ever acid free.
Basically avoid these.
* Markers-you can color directly onto stamps
with markers to get more than one color on an image, the acid free markers
work well; permanent markers can stain your stamps, but they're your
stamps so enjoy! The Tombow
and Marvy brand brush tip markers are nice and "juicy" for
coloring onto stamps, EK Success wide tips work fine as well but they do
dry quickly so work fast.
* Paints-acrylic paints in a very thin layer
on a plate will work fairly well on many stamped images, especially the
foam or sponge stamps. Acrylic paints are acid free and one of the most
neglected color choices in scrapping. If you already have these at home
from other projects-play
around and have fun with this!
* Bleach-many stampers are enjoying stamping
with bleach or bleach gel cleaners onto colored paper. You never know what
color the paper will end up, but it's fun. The bleach is damaging to the
paper though (over time)
and should not be considered acid free. Use this technique only if you
encase the image in lamination or memory pockets to keep the harmful
chemicals from "drifting" to your archival pages.
* Fabric ink-allows you to stamp onto
clothing, home décor, tote bags, etc. This is also acid free, but should
be heat set for best results so remember to get all your photos out of the
way before heat setting.