Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The Value--and Challenge--of a Good Black Ink

Be still, my heart. Memento Luxe tuxedo black ink is lovely. Check it out.

I trimmed this card down after stamping my banner a bit too high on
the standard card. It looks much better. Trust me.


The crisp, dense black is gorgeous. Click on the pic to see it bigger. The pennants are stamped in Memento Luxe pear tart and rose bud. This ink is creamy and thick and wonderful.

It has only one drawback: it dries slowly.

THUD. I've already ruined three otherwise perfect cards by smearing the black ink before it dried. After years of primarily using quick-drying Memento (no-Luxe) black ink, getting used to drying time is hard, hard, hard.

Impatience may or may not be my problem. So I'm teaching myself to set cards aside for drying rather than handling them immediately. I'm a slow learner.

What about you? Does your ink have you well-trained, or do you stick with quick-drying inks?

Supplies
stamps: Mama Elephant Trifecta, Hero Arts Year-Round Sentiments
ink: Memento Luxe
paper: white #110 card
accessories: black gemstones


12 comments:

  1. I love the Memento Luxe Inks, but I tend to be a smear-er too, so my go to black ink is always India Ink.

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  2. I don't use that much black ink, I couldn't even tell you what brand I have right now. Your card looks great, so may be I should pay more attention to the ink I'm using.

    Petra

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  3. I use 4 different types of black ink because I always want the fastest drying ink that will suit my purpose. Smeared ink is a big pet peeve and since creative time is always quick snippets here and there, I hate having to wait.

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  4. I personally prefer the slower drying inks for black and brown, since I like those colors to be as rich as possible. Your cards are beautiful!!

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  5. The Memento Luxe looks beautiful. Very crisp. I'm a smudger, too, though, so I don't know how I'd do with it. My go to ink for sentiments is Versafine. I think it's a bit crisper than other black inks and for some reason, I've managed to learn to keep my fingers away from the Versafine ink (but not any others!) til they dry.

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  6. I think some waiting is worth it - and that sentiment is blackity black black! On the other hand, waiting four days for my stazon white to dry after stamping it onto a glass is not acceptable - anyone else had this problem?

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  7. I use Versafine black because the image is so crisp (but often get the ink on me from the pad ! ) Is this memento Luxe more for embossing - and what happens if you heat it dry !

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    1. I haven't used it for heat embossing myself, but I watched a video on a blog (Julie Ebersole on Ellen's blog, I think, but I could be wrong!). It does emboss well, and I imagine heat drying would be just fine. I can't be bothered, though. Just too lazy. ;-)

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  8. I also use Versafine black ink. I set cards aside to dry and leave my craft room. Otherwise I tend to touch and smear them when using a slow drying ink. I don't have any Lux inks, but would love to have some.

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  9. I am a major smugger. I can only use quick-drying inks and sometimes even that gets smeared. I use Ranger Archival jet black. Love it!!!

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  10. When I have something that needs drying time - pearl pen, glossy accents etc - I've learned to write down the time on my scratch paper. Otherwise I know I'll be tempted to check on it too soon... and oops! But somehow writing the time makes it real for me.

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  11. I absolutely LOVE Versafine Onyx Black ink whenever I need black ink! I love how crisp it is, and how quickly it dries... except when I use it on a VERY specific card stock. (I should know better than to attempt making a very important card at 2:00 a.m....) Then, discovering that it dries more slowly on that particular C/S, so that every time I touch it, it smudges just a wee bit - well, let's just say that I was NOT a happy camper. I tried 3 times to get a good image, and, in the end, I chose the one image that looked like the smudgy bit was supposed to be there. Done and done!

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!