INKY FINGERS

Before I forget, today is the last day for commenting on the Blog Candy if you'd like to win it - no more comments will be accepted after midnight (GMT) tonight. I can't believe that 199 people have commented so far!! Wow! Now for something exciting...

The Ink Fairies came this morning, instead of the postie… a
good friend sent me a Memento Inkpad (and some pre-cut glossy card) and an
anonymous friend (although I think I know who she is, from the postmark….) sent
me a new Black Memories Ink Pad! Now I can use my Copics without worrying about
the ink, although I have found that Versafine is okay if you leave it to dry for
a day or two before colouring and I’m not averse to embossing it anyway, to make
sure it doesn’t smear!I cried at the thoughtfulness of these two fairies
and then realised I could now carry on with my experiments and became really
excited, so here they are.

Memento on the left and Memories on the right – on the new glossy card (encaustic double sided gloss type)

Memories on the left and Memento on the right.

Memento – as you can see, it stamps beautifully (where it doesn’t, I think it’s my fault and yes, I filled in a little bit – not too well, either) BUT it’s not as black as other inks, is it? Good for Copics, though – as is Memories ink :)

Recommendation from fellow blogger, Lynne was to try Versamark, then Ancient Page on my inkpad. So I tried that and a few other inks, too. The one on the left (slightly smudged – my fault) is much better and is Versamark with Memories ink. The one on the right is Versamark plus India Ink. It’s a Cuttlebug wax resist background, so I wonder if the wax would have caused some resistance?

This one is Versamark and Ancient Page and yes, it does work (thank you) but I still don’t like Ancient Page because it’s grey, rather than black. Shame… it’s an alcohol inked background, btw.

The following two are stamped with Stazon – naughty, naughty, I know, although they reckon the cleaner does the damage, rather than the ink, so I just used babywipes to clean. The images are MUCH darker and much crisper and I must admit I prefer these. Only problem is, if you look closely you’ll see that each stamping actually pulled some of the coating off the card – strangely, it was the hand in both cases, lol. I can live with that – I’ll fill it in with marker pen :) Worth noting, too that this was coated glossy card – only glossy on one side – so the other gloss should be better.

On the other hand, both Memories and Memento were perfect for line drawings as you’ll see from these clear stamp images, although you’ll have to click to enlarge if you want to see clearly. Once again, you really can see the difference in shades of black – the Memento is definitely greyer.