Different Types of Inkpads

Hello and welcome to my blog.

Are you confused by the different types of inks? 

If you are new to stamping or papercrafts in general, it can be a little daunting. You don't want to buy the wrong ink pad or be stuck with one you won't use at all.

Stampin' Up! offer dye, waterproof dye, pigment & solvent inks.

• Dye Inks: are water based inks. They are great for embossing as the ink stays wet long enough for the embossing powder to adhere to but you do need to work fast. You cannot colour over them with other water based mediums as the ink will bleed. You can watercolor by pressing the pads onto a nonporous surface like a stamping block, then picking up the ink with a wet brush.
  
  

• Waterproof dye inks: These types of ink have a different base so that when they are dry you can color and watercolor over them and they won’t bleed or smear. These inks are great for line images that you want to color in, and these inks tend to be more colorfast than their regular dye ink counterparts. These inks tend to be more difficult to clean off of your stamps and may require a special cleaner to fully remove the ink.
  
  
  
• Solvent Inks: is fast drying. You cannot emboss with this ink. It is great for using on plastic, metal, glass, ceramic and other materials. [Dye inks will not dry on these materials.] Just not fabric.
  Solvent inks are permanent and don’t require heat setting to achieve permanency. Most solvent inks are acid-free and archival. Most solvent inks are transparent but there is a line of StazOn Opaque inks that come in a variety of opaque pastel colors including black.
  
  

• Pigment Inks: are glycerin based. They are great for embossing as they take a while to dry naturally. Pigment inks are a lot thicker than dye inks. Dye inks are more “liquid” and transparent, pigment inks are opaque and thick. Because it’s a thicker ink these pads dry out faster than dye inks and need to be refilled more often. These inks are great for stamping on card stock, and a great thing about them is you can stamp lighter colors on darker card stock and the ink color will show. Pigment inks are generally fade-resistant so are good for scrapbooking. They may require heat setting to dry fully, and don’t work well on nonporous surfaces.
  

  
  

Thanks for visiting and have a great day.

Happy crafting.