I’ll be the first to admit that inking a stamp seems like a fairly straightforward process – press stamp onto ink, then press stamp onto paper. Simple right?
That’s what I thought anyway, but back in my scrapbooking days I was shown a couple of tricks to make sure your stamping comes out as flawless as possible and I’d love to share them with you. If you’d like to know more, get out your ink and stamps and follow along below!
The key to a well-stamped pattern is to ensure the stamp is evenly inked. And your first instinct might be to press your stamp into your ink pad, but hold up for a sec and try switching that around so that your stamp is on the table and the ink is in your hand.
Then gently tap your ink pad onto your stamp, until all the raised areas of your stamp are evenly covered.
Why do it this way? It might feel strange the first couple of times, but I’ve always found that with this method, you have more control over your inking.
Firstly, you can see your stamp so you’ll be able to easily tell when all areas have been covered in ink. And the gentle tapping motion means you won’t overload your stamp with ink (as opposed to pressing your stamp into your ink pad – if you press too hard, ink will get in between the raised areas and on the edges of the stamp, which makes for a messy print!).
Once your stamp has been nicely inked, flip it over and press it onto your sheet of paper. Apply firm, even pressure onto all areas of the stamp – make sure you do this over the corners and edges, not just the middle!
Oh, and try not to rock or move the stamp as you press down, otherwise you’ll end up with shadowing/ghosting rather than a nice, crisp pattern.
When you’ve applied pressure over all areas of your stamp, lift the stamp straight up off the page.
Repeat as many times as needed to get your pattern across your sheet of paper.
And you’re done! I’ve found this method of inking my stamps to be fairly foolproof, but I’d love to know how you go if you try this for the first time.
Oh, and another handy tip – when you put your ink pads away, store them upside down. This will let the ink run to the surface of the pad so that when you next use it, top of your pad will be full of ink – just the way you want it!
xx Steph