Friday 17 June 2011

One of the best tips I've ever been given...

So, those people that know me, know that I am OBSESSED with Distress ink pads. I'm lucky enough to have every colour and I'm forever telling my gals that they are the best thing ever... BUT... I do have one little issue with them. They really aren't that brilliant when stamping with acrylic stamps - they don't seem to like to sit on the surface. I've tried all the usual remedies - patting the surface of the stamp with sellotape, rubbing vigourously with an eraser... but though this gives some improvement, I've not found anything to completely solve the problem.
THEN... I heard mention of somebody rubbing their acrylic stamps with sandpaper to remedy this exact issue. Yes - SANDPAPER!! "Silly girl", I thought; "she'll ruin her stamps."
Anyway, in desperation, I thought I'd try it on a stamp I'm not overly fond of... guess what? It works! Absolutely brilliantly. I spent over two hours yesterday (I own a fair few stamps lol) doing this to every stamp I own... after a little bit of cramp, and a few sheets of fine grade sandpaper, I can now reach for any of my stamps and any of my distress inks without fear of a dodgy image - fab! Here's a picture of before and after:

I don't think I need to tell you which is which - the results are obvious. So - if you want to use dye based inks on your acrylic stamps, get some sandpaper to them - it removes whatever they use in the manufacturing process which water based inks don't like better than anything else I've tried! xxx

5 comments:

Tracee said...

Brilliant tip! Tx

SYLVIA-ANNE said...

What a fantastic tip - I stopped using my distress inks on acrylic stamps for this very reason. I will be brave, and get out my sandpaper! Thank you so much.
Sylvia xx

The Dolphin Inn said...

Thank god I am not the only one, I have been doing this for ages, nothing quite like it for getting those images to stamp properly xxx

Gini said...

Wow what a difference your sanding makes.
I tried it before but it didn't make any difference but I don't think I was robust enough with the sandpaper, I'll have to give it another try as it obviously can work well.
Another way to use distress inks with acrylic stamps is to first apply versamark and then add the distress ink.
I often find on rubber stamps if I apply the distress ink to the stamp using a brayer instead of directly from the pad I get a better impression.
Found your blog from the Crafty Individuals blog - happy creating Kim :-)
Gini
xx

DBMM said...

Thanks for your post! It help me a LOT!!