Who Knew All Those Inks Were DIFFERENT?

This week I've been studying up on the different kinds of inks used in scrapbooking. No, I don't mean the ink that comes out of a pen, I mean all those different sized ink pads that crowd the shelves in any scrapbooking store lately - dye inks, distress inks, pigment inks, chalk inks, permanent inks.

I have quite a few ink pads and up until recently basically used them for two purposes. The large ink pads I used with my wooden and clear stamps to add pictures and words to layouts or cards. The small chalk inks (they look like a teardrop) I've used to add color to the edges of photos, papers, and other embellishments. I've never really paid attention to whether the ink was dye or pigment or permanent, probably because I don't do any embossing (which requires a particular ink, I understand) and only stamp/ink on paper. However, I recently stamped on a transparency and this weekend am taking a mini-album class at our local scrapbooking store that requires distress inks and a Tim Holtz applicator. These activities prompted my study of ink types.

There's a wealth of information out there on inks, and now that I am more aware of the different types, who knows, I'll probably try to use the "right" one for my projects based on the little that I now know:

• pigment inks are used for embossing, are thicker inks, and create fade-resistant color because they "sit" on top of the page rather than soaking into the page like dye inks
• dye inks dry the fastest
• distress ink is formulated to create an aged look
• StazOn is permanent ink and is the best to use on transparencies

This new wealth of information also prompted me to re-organize my inks. I have my ink pads displayed in a wooden cassette tape holder, which hangs behind the door in my craft room. I put my dye inks on the right, pigment inks on the left, and will have my distress inks in the middle and StazOn ink above that (these last two are currently packed for my class tomorrow). I keep my chalk inks (since they are smaller) in three drawers on the shelves above my craft table.

As you can see, I also have a few of my larger wooden stamps stored on this shelf. So, of course, I decided to organize/ declutter/re-arrange all my wooden stamps. I have two old printer's drawers hanging in my craft room to hold my collection of wooden stamps. Compared to some that I've seen, my collection is pretty small, but I love that they all fit in these two drawers. I also love having them displayed this way because I don't have to look through drawers or containers to find the one I want. [Now I exclusively purchase the clear stamps which take up much less room. I store those in drawers on my bookshelf. And, no, I didn't feel the urge to organize them . . . yet.]

I even got a little decluttering in because I had duplicates of several stamps. I'll be passing these on to other family members, so that's recycling, too!