Crowdsourcing Success and Two Cool Christmas Card

If you missed my very wordy post about "fast-dry" pigment inks that aren't drying for me, it's here. Two readers made suggestions that have proven to be extremely helpful, and I recommend you give them a try.

Solution #1

Julia's solution is hairspray. Donna warns that some hairspray can turn the card yellow in a short period of time, but Julia has never had that happen. I suggest experimenting with aerosol cans of cheap hairspray. Joan shared that she has used Aqua Net and Tresemme with success.

I had a pump bottle of Suave hairspray and tried it just to see. The bottle (of course) spat blotches of spray on the card, but once it dried, the ink didn't move. YAY! An aerosol can will spray a fine enough mist to avoid blotches and will be much less likely to warp the card than a standard spray bottle.

My conclusion is that, essentially, hairspray works like the fixative, only without the toxicity and need to go outside where there are kamikaze bugs intent on destroying your work.


Solution #2

Bev sent me an email suggesting that I use an Embossing Buddy to pre-treat the paper before stamping, with the idea that the chalk would pull the moisture from the ink and dry it. For those who don't know, an Embossing Buddy is a fabric bag filled with chalk. It's marketed to be used to prepare paper before heat embossing. You pounce or rub the bag on the paper before stamping, and the embossing powder will stick only to the ink, not the surrounding paper. It works great for that, by the way.

Sadly, pouncing before stamping didn't work to dry the ink, but when I pounced the Embossing Buddy over the image after stamping, it worked GREAT!!!!

Embossing Buddy helps ink dry!

Instead of rubbing, I did lightly pounce, with the suspicion that rubbing would cause the ink to smear before it had a chance to dry. After pouncing, I blew the dust off and then wiped gently with a tissue to remove any residual dust.  I've tried this on a number of cards, and it worked every single time. What a relief!

And for those of you who use these inks in scrapbooks, chalk is used to neutralize acid, so I suspect it's perfectly safe. It's certainly not acidic. But I'm no expert on archival matters, so you might want to consult one.



Many, many thanks to Bev and Julia for giving us two workable solutions to this pesky problem. But please remember, individual results will vary. Donna's experience proves that hairspray isn't always a workable option, so definitely experiment before using hairspray on anything important. And my experience with the Embossing Buddy may also not work under all circumstances.

Now for the Christmas cards. The problematic pigment inks used on both were successfully dried with the Embossing Buddy.

Fresh Ink Sicilian Blue and Island; Memento Luxe Teal Zeal
and Tuxedo Black

Avery Elle Sea Glass; Hero Arts Mint Julip; VersaMagic Turquoise Gem;
Memento Luxe Tuxedo Black

How lovely to have a problem solved!


Supplies
stamps: StampinUp Endless Wishes, Hero Arts Holly Days
ink: listed in captions
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: craft foam, glue, silver metallic marker