When you buy scrap booking supplies, how do you choose your inks? Here are some ideas.
What makes paper 'scrapbook paper' as opposed to just any old paper? The answer, as experienced scrapbookers will know, is that everything you use for scrapbooking is supposed to be acid free. Acid will degrade (turn paper yellow & brittle) and isn't good for your photographs, so acid free papers and inks are what you need to create scrapbooks and memory albums.
Even so, once you've found acid free inks, there is a huge selection, so how do you decide which one to buy? Is it just question of price? Should you just choose the right color for your project? The answer, as usual, is both yes, and no.
Some inks are designed to dry very quickly and to cope with surfaces that, unlike paper, aren't porous. Should you want, for example to stamp onto a transparent overlay or vellum, you need a fast drying ink; Stayzon is usually very effective for this sort of project. If you want to create shaded mysterious backgrounds you need a slow drying water based ink, like Tim Holtz Distress Ink from Ranger.
When ink is fast drying it won't smear, which is great, unless you want to blend it with another color. One of the nicest things about the Tim Holtz inks is that they are very blendable and they come in a fabulous selection of colors. I've often wanted to create a colored background or embellishment for a page, but because the photograph was old, bright modern colors didn't look right with it. The Distress inks however come in wonderful antique shades, so you can shade a background with pink, blue, green etc. without making your antique, sepia photograph look out of place.
Of course you don't always have lovely old pictures to add to your scrapbook and this is where I love to play with my printer. Without having to go through any fancy computer programs, my printer will print anything with a sepia effect; you may find yours can do the same thing. It's fun to have the kids dress up and treat the picture as an antique, using rubber stamps to print text on the background and then tearing carefully. Then just rub the edges with distress ink - Tea Dye is a great color for this, and you'll have an authentic antique look.
I've used this effect several times with postcards and letters. I have a rubber stamp of an envelope, complete with hand written address, stamp and post mark. First I use the ink direct to paper to create a grungy effect, then I stamp the envelope stamp with black matte ink. Then I tear the edge and ink it then add a couple more antique ink stains with the ink pad if needed. This makes a lovely background or element for a scrapbook page or larger collage.
Often our sepia photographs are the most precious pictures we own. The right ink and embellishments will create a setting which will really do them justice. You can see Tim Holtz Distress Inks at Dinglefoot.com where we sell lots of inks and other scrapbooking supplies.
