Below, you will see two sets of flower images. There is a major difference in their quality! And it's all in how the images were inked up. Let me explain:
Copyright Stampin' Up!® 1990-2006
The first set of flower images were inked up by simply tapping the stamp on the ink pad and then quickly stamping the image. I think they look pretty cruddy compared to the second set of images! What did I do differently? Two things: I twisted my stamp on my ink pad and I also held it for a few seconds on my paper.
How is this more effective? Well, when you twist your stamp, the motion will draw more ink up out of the pad. When you look at your image before stamping it, you will see little beads of ink sitting on the rubber. Your juicy stamp will now leave you with a beautiful image! This twisting trick will also help to keep you from applying too much pressure onto your stamp. Many times when someone stamps a cruddy image, I’ve seen them return to their ink pad with a vengeance. Pressing down on your ink pad like this will leave you with ink in places you don't want it, like on the bits of rubber around the stamp or inside of letters like "e." Eek! You don’t need more pressure--you just need a new method of inking your stamps!
You can also end up with ink in places you didn't want it when you push your stamps down too hard on your paper. You do need to press down firmly on your stamps, but you can prevent accidents like this by holding your stamp on your paper for a few seconds. Think of it this way: those few seconds are giving the ink enough time to soak into the paper from off your stamp. It will leave you with beautiful colored images, like the flowers above!
These two tricks combined make for great stamping. But what about stamping words and greetings? They can be tricky, too! Does twisting work for them? Well, sometimes, when the image is thick. Here's what I like to do with fine lined greetings (and this would apply to fine lined images as well). First, here are my examples:
Copyright Stampin' Up!® 1990-2006
What did I do to make the second greeting look so much better? Well, besides holding it to the paper for a few seconds, I also ran my stamp off of the edge of my raised ink pad. This gave an even coating of ink to the surface of my stamp. To ensure that I don't end up with a bunch of streaks from doing this, I usually tap my stamp on the ink pad's surface after I've dragged it off the end. Now I know my image is not only well inked but streak-free. Yay!
I hope you found these little tricks to be helpful and I hope they give you more success with your stamping! Cruddy images can be so discouraging. So, here's to great stamping!
6 comments:
That's a good point you made about holding the stamp to the paper. I've always told people to "tap, tap, twist," but never even mentioned to hold it down on the paper. DUH to myself! Great examples BTW.
Cool lesson. Even "old" stampers can learn new tricks. I really like what you've done with your blog!~
This is great! I am really enjoying your blog and your squidoo site too! I wish I understood the Squidoothing a bit better; seems like a great resource... I'd love to hear more!
Thanks!
Totally helpful
Thankyou
It's good to get back to basics
Nobody ever told me those things and i've been stampin'up for 2years
You're awesome
I cannot believe it! Who knew???!!! Thank you! I used this tip today while using Simple Shapes. I have never been able to get a solid circle! Today, thanks to you, I did. I had to go back through my history just to find your blog so I could tell you how amazing you are!
I learn so much from you! Thanks for sharing int information!
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