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I have several stamp,pads that are from Stampin Up. I want to get more but the Stampin Up are so expensive. Can anyone recommend a less expensive set of stamp pads?Gina K, Simon Hurley, Catherine Pooler I’ve heard these are good sets?
I think it depends on what you want to do with the ink, there are all kinds of ink pads that may or may not be what you want? Personally I really like distress Oxide inks, but that is just me. I have arthritis in my hands and the little square pads will sit in them better and I like to use a foam pad for blending that ink.
I 99% of the time for line art use a Versafine Clair Nocturn ink for black outline art and sentiments. I really like the whole versaline ink line for details and I do have quite a few of the colors now but, black is my go-to.
I do not know prices but, I own hundreds of ink pads and I know the ones I mentioned you can watch for a sale online and in some stores if needed. even Micheals is carrying some of the oxides on the shelf now in stores and they put out coupons on a regular basis.
I've been dealing with a similar issue. I love my older SU and CTMH ink pads, but they change colors every year, so I cannot get refills for them anymore. I wanted some that were easy to blend, but also could use for stamping also. I bought me some Distress Oxides, and am going to try those. At least I can find refills for those online, and Hobby Lobby had the stamp pads on sale this week. I have some of the regular Distress inks and refills, and I love those, but they do not stamp well, but I like them for blending and I've heard they are great for watercoloring. So I am going to try the Distress Oxides. I like that I can find them at multiple places, and don't have to worry about whether they are constantly out of stock, etc.. I'll have to see how I like stamping with them. Interested to see the other input you receive and what you decide to try. Still keeping my SU and CTMH until they dry completely out, as I still like them. Just wished they kept a certain percentage of inks the same as the basic colors, so people could easily get refills. I don't like being wasteful and throwing out the inkpads. I even wondered if you could wash them out and reuse them with a different color ink refill.
I use the Momemto Tuxedo Black for use with my alcohol markers, and I have Staz On to use with watercoloring.I'll have to try a few of the Oxides I have and see how it goes. Hoping we both like them!
O.k., I've been playing with one of my Distress Oxides ,and here is what I discovered. I don't think I'd use them for stamping unless you have a stamping platform, as it takes a few tries to get it right sometimes. I'm using a new pad, so it was really juicy and put on too much if I applied the pad directly to the stamp, but if I used a sponge to daub the ink on, it did well. Just had to reapply a few times with the stamp platform. Still love them for blending backgrounds. I also have a couple Momento Dew Drop inks, and I like those too, but they are small, and I don't know if you can't get ink refills for them. I've never seen them. But I guess it depends on how much you want to stamp colors.
You might just get one or two of the ones you are considering and try them out first.
Interested to see the other input you receive and what you decide to try. Still keeping my SU and CTMH until they dry completely out, as I still like them. Just wished they kept a certain percentage of inks the same as the basic colors, so people could easily get refills. I don't like being wasteful and throwing out the inkpads. I even wondered if you could wash them out and reuse them with a different color ink refill.
You can! In fact, I don't even wash mine out. When my Close To Cocoa pad needed re-inked and I was out of its reinker, I used Soft Suede and it's been working fine for years. I do this with many of the colors (Really Rust became Cajun Craze, Ruby Red became Riding Hood Red, etc.)
If you like the matchy matchy between ink and paper, I think Gina K is a line to look at. If that doesn't matter, seems like the lines you listed in your first post are all good. One thing to note, there's a difference between die inks and distress and distress oxides. They're all wonderful, but they behave differently. The ink you choose and the look you're after need to match.
__________________ If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don't. ~ Jimmy Carter
Like many others, I use the distress oxide and distress inks. I like that the distress oxide is easy to use for heat embossing since it is a combo of pigment and dye ink. I also like using it on dark paper because of the chalk-like appearance it gives. They're also great for blending. I normally get mine at Joann's for a good deal. They're easy to get and I like that.
My other dye ink pads I use are from Hero Arts, Altenew, Pinkfresh Studio, and Papertrey Ink. I tend to buy a 4 pack of ink cubes in colors I use most to try them out. It is also handy for me to do that because I do a lot of layered stamping and I like having the different shades of color that I know go well together.
I've been so fortunate to find huge amounts of SU at garage sales this summer. It help that my cousin is a garage sale maniac and spots lots of deals for me. I recently got 32 SU ink pads for $8.00. They weren't the old smaller ones with the plaid design on the cover. I didn't even bother to look through them for duplicates. I ended up getting 6 I didn't have (not really old colors), gifted my friend 19 and the rest I will donate to other friends. All we "juicy". I have found many stamp sets and just this last weekend I found a milk crate full of SU cardstock for only $5.00. These were exceptional deals but it shows you can find products affordably.
I love my SU inks, but I agree, they can be pricey. I've got a dozen or so ink cubes from Altenew - they are great for using with their layering stamps, because I know the colors go well together. I don't have any GinaK inks, but those who do rave about them, as they do about Catherine Pooler inks, and I've heard the same about Simon Hurley's inks.
I've started getting some of the hybrid ink pads made by Scrapbook.com and I REALLY like them. I had just the black one to begin with and I love that I can use it both for alcohol markers OR watercoloring, etc. I've bought a few more in "color families" to try them with my layering stamps, and have been really pleased with them. And they go on sale at least twice a year for 50% off and I can get the refills for them pretty easily from scrapbook.com - and so far, they've not been like SU and retired colors every year. And a lot of the colors (of those I have, anyway) I've been able to match pretty well to SU cardstock.
I also have a couple Momento Dew Drop inks, and I like those too, but they are small, and I don't know if you can't get ink refills for them. I've never seen them. But I guess it depends on how much you want to stamp colors.You might just get one or two of the ones you are considering and try them out first.
For line art I like Ranger Archival Jet Black or Black Soot(you can get in cubes) and GinaK Amalgam Obsidian (Ditto for the cubes). The Amalgam is also supposed to be good for coloring with alcohol inks like Copic AND/OR water coloring without bleeding.GinaK (coordinating papers), Distress Oxide and Distress are my “go to” inks for color but I also like the new Concord & 9th inks (which has coordinating papers) IMO, all three blend beautifully.
I like using small cubes because they are less expensive and I can afford more colors. I use Versafine black for sentiments, Versamark for heat embossing, Gina K for general stamping, layered stamps, etc, and I use Gina K and Distress Oxide for ink blending. I use Gina K amalgam for coloring since it works with both watercolor and alcohol markers.
Lawn Fawn is another great ink line. They stamp great, and also coordinate with their cardstocks. (Though--in full disclaimer--I have none of their cardstocks, so can't speak to exactly how well they match.) I have several colors of their inks, plus Hero Arts, Versafine Onyx Black & Sepia, a couple of Simon Says Stamp inks (Fog makes for great virtually-no-line coloring), and several Memento dew drop pads. Plus some miscellaneous inks, and Gina K's Charcoal Brown. If you go the Gina K route, just be aware that her regular dye inks are NOT waterproof. I got used to Simon, Lawn Fawn, & Hero Arts, which can all be used with water-based markers & watercolor without bleeding. I got the Charcoal Brown dye ink, and didn't bother reading the description. Tried it with a pine cone stamp that I watercolored, and the ink bled. Luckily, I wanted a brown pine cone, so no biggie. (But, that's what you get for assuming!) Her amalgam inks are waterproof, as well as alcohol-marker friendly, & good for colored pencils with odorless mineral spirits (e.g. Gamsol). My general point is, know what you want to do with the inks, and look for inks that support that. Such as, waterproof inks for stamping images to watercolor, etc. Hope this helps!
I went ahead and bought one of the Gina K. ink cubes to see how I like it. Also ordered one of the clearance stamp sets. It had a fox and some other cuties on it, and it was worth it just for the sentiments alone.So glad that msthang asked the question about the stamp pads; learning a lot about the different brands.
Once I began using the Misti, I found I liked using ink cubes over the regular size pads. Tired of Stampin’ Up’s chronic intentional retiring of colors caused me to purchase all the Gina K cubes. I’m a happy stamper!
SU sells empty ink cubes. They are usually 5/$9.00. I purchased a set & then got Distress Oxide refills. This way I can add DO to my collection
without breaking the bank!
There are very few ink manufacturers in the US, so most brands share manufacturers and there's no difference in quality. If you're talking about a normal dye ink pad - choose for size and the color palette you like, or the type of ink pad you prefer - foam vs. linen etc.
I agree with many people that cubes are such a great way to get so many colors at once and keep your MISTI clean.
One thing I look for in an ink line is reinkers, so that's something to think about.
Outside of normal dye ink pads, there are specialty inks like Distress & Oxide, Versafine Clair, Hero's water-reactive inks etc. that you can collect along the way. For me it's all about color!
I too, love the Oxides. But my favorite dye inks are the Altenew ink spots. They come in sets of 4, which are perfect for layering stamps. Their color palette is beautiful and I managed to get most of them on sale. Ink refills are also available.
I have several stamp,pads that are from Stampin Up. I want to get more but the Stampin Up are so expensive. Can anyone recommend a less expensive set of stamp pads?Gina K, Simon Hurley, Catherine Pooler I’ve heard these are good sets?
So I'm pretty new to stamping but I bought a set of versamagic chalk ink when I first started last year and it's really easy to use. It makes nice crisp images with just one try, it shows up on well dark card, it's great to heat emboss with and it blends really smooth. I also have a set of memento dew drops and they are really nice too, they get really good detail. I have the chalk ink all in the dew drops too. I have a few oxides and they aren't good for stamping so I really don't want to invest in something that's just good for blending and sprinkling with water. I have some distress Inks and they are okay. But I just use watercolors if I want that effect, I like to watercolor and it's easy to do. I have the Gina K amalgam and am pretty happy with that because it's a nice deep black and you can use watercolor and alcohol inkmarkers with it, no guessing. I have the Ranger archival ink and some Wendi Vecchi colors and they are okay, not great. Got a sample of Catherine Pooler and some lawn fawn and they are okay but didn't wow me. So I'm pretty much at this point a Tsuiniko fan all in all. I plan on trying their Versafine Clair as I've heard really good things about it for stamping fine detail, but it's kind of spendy, like over 8.00 a pad so I'll just get a few basic colors of I like it. The dew drops are only 2.50 over at Imagine Crafts and they all have reinkers and lots of nice colors and free shipping on orders over 50.00. It's a nice site and glad I found it for the ink pads I want. They just sell Tsuninko brand stuff. This is a card I did today stamping with the Versamagic chalk ink and they are all embossed. The clear embossing powder sticks good to the chalk so I didn't have to use versamark. Had plenty of time to do the embossing, the ink doesn't dry right away.
Thanks for a great discussion! My two favorite ink pads are Color Box Archival in Wicked Black and Mudslide. I use them all the time, and am horribly disappointed about the disappearance of Color Box.
I have a nice sellection of Memento Dew Drops, and those work very well for me.
I used to use more pigment inks. I love the opacity, but I got tired of waiting years for them to dry.
Has anyone tried the Fade Out ink from that company whose name I can’t remember?
If so, what did you think?
Kendel
Thanks for a great discussion! My two favorite ink pads are Color Box Archival in Wicked Black and Mudslide. I use them all the time, and am horribly disappointed about the disappearance of Color Box. I have a nice sellection of Memento Dew Drops, and those work very well for me. I used to use more pigment inks. I love the opacity, but I got tired of waiting years for them to dry. Has anyone tried the Fade Out ink from that company whose name I can’t remember? If so, what did you think? Kendel
I have the Ink on 3 Fade Out No Line Coloring ink pad with a reinker but I need more practice doing the no-line coloring. I have watched several videos and I just need more practice to get mine to look good enough to post .
Scrapbook dot com has good inks, as well. They have them in color families and numbered so they are essentially like the Altenew color families. I use mainly Altenew and those. I have heard good things about The Stamp Market and they have nice colors. I think every company out there is going to be better as far as colors endlessly retiring, I don't know of any colors retiring from Altenew, SB, PTI or others off the top of my head
__________________ "For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack" ~Rudyard Kipling my gallery
How did I not see this? I swear, my eyes don't cooperate sometimes! Thank you so much! I tried the new inks I got and Momento is my fave, and the Distress Oxides are a close second. The Momento is best for stamping, and the distress oxides are best for blending; although, I can stamp with them too! Thanks for sharing this!
Originally Posted by hoptownracer1[IMG]//images.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/images/scs2/buttons/viewpost.gif[/IMG] I also have a couple Momento Dew Drop inks, and I like those too, but they are small, and I don't know if you can't get ink refills for them. I've never seen them. But I guess it depends on how much you want to stamp colors.You might just get one or two of the ones you are considering and try them out first.
Best Stamp Pads
