Ever find yourself standing in front of an ink pad display wondering why there are so many inks to choose from? What’s the difference between pigment and dye? Do I need different types of ink, or will one good one do the job? Can I heat emboss with any type of ink?
We’re here to answer all your ink questions.
Chalk Inks
Chalk inks are long lasting and fade resistant inks. They blend well and provide more of a matte finish. They dry rather quickly and are made permanent by heat setting. Clearsnap® makes a chalk ink in their ColorBox® line.
Dye Inks
Typical dye inks are waterproof, acid free and transparent. They dry very quickly and blend and dissolve well. Dye inks work well for general stamping and can be used on glossy or matte papers.
Cropsy Turvy carries several unique dye inks:
Tim Holtz® Distress Inks are a collection of 36 acid-free, non-toxic, fade resistant, water-based dye inks. They’re perfect for achieving vintage, stained, aged effects. Tim selected the colors and helped develop these inks to produce a realistic, weathered look on paper, photos and decorative fibers. Re-inkers are available in .5 oz. bottles with eye drop applicators. Distress inks are different from other dye inks in that they are water reactive and can be used to heat emboss, as they stay wet longer than typical dye inks.
Tim Holtz® Adirondack® Alcohol Inks are acid-free, fast drying transparent dye inks specially formulated to create a colorful, polished stone effect. Use on glossy paper, dominoes, metal, shrink plastic, glass, and other slick, non-porous surfaces. They are available in sixteen exciting 3-color palettes or 48 individual bottles and can be applied with an ink applicator, a fillable pen, or straight from the bottle. Alcohol Blending Solution is available for lightening colors and cleaning inks from non-porous surfaces.
Adirondack® Dye Ink Pads are rich, realistic earth tones, pastel lights and vibrant brights that coordination with the Adirondack product line. These inks are acid free and fade resistant, great for stamping and come in a 1 oz. reinker.
Pigment Inks
Pigment inks are thick, opaque and slow drying. They are acid free and more vivid than dye inks. They are also easier to clean. Pigment inks are fade-resistant and are great for heat embossing and air-dry on matte papers. Cropsy Turvy carries Adirondack ® Pigment Inks by Ranger Industries. They are available in 24 colors which consist of 6 brights, 6 lights, 12 earth tones and Pitch Black and Snow Cap. They coordinate with the entire Adirondack® product line and have half ounce reinkers.
Solvent Inks
Solvent Inks are fast drying and work well with nonporous or semiporus materials such as acrylic, metal glass and more. Cropsy Turvy carries Archival Inks™ which provide lasting stamping results that are permanent on many surfaces. These are perfect for achieving a crisp image that doesn't bleed over water-based inks and markers, acrylic paint, water colors, Adirondack® Alcohol Ink or Perfect Pearls™ pigment powders. They are available in 24 vibrant shades in a standard size stamp pad. These inks work very well when you are coloring in a stamped image with markers, paints or watercolors and come in .5 oz reinkers.
Watermark
Watermark inks are acid-free, slow-drying, slightly tacky, colorless inks that are perfect for heat-embossing. They can be used alone for a watermark tone-on-tone look or with tinted embossing powder. You can heat set them to speed up drying time. Cropsy Turvy carries Inkssentials™ Watermark Resist Ink in a versatile multi-purpose stamp pad, which can be used to create the look of a watermark on colored papers and as a crisp, bright resist for water-based dye inks on glossy papers. It contains an all-natural resin, pure and unbleached with a slight tint, which will not affect your artwork.
I hope this has cleared up some of the confusion the vast array of inking products may have caused you. If you would like to play with any of these products and experience their unique properties first hand, contact Cropsy Turvy at info@cropsyturvy.com to schedule a workshop.
Until next time, Happy Scrapping! ~Patrice
I then coated the entire piece with Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint in Picket Fence. Once it was dry, I inked the entire tag with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Dusty Concord and the edges in Black Soot. 
I used the Tim Holtz Alterations Embossing Folders to emboss a spider web on the tag and then rubbed over it in Silver Rub and Buff. I used two other Alterations Embossing folders, cut out the images, and used the same techniques as I did on the tag and then rubbed Silver Rub and Buff over the raised images.
I decorated with various other adornments, including some ephemera from the Tim Holtz Ideology collection and a spider web border punched from a Martha Stewart border punch.
