Making your own ink pads

[yellowcherrios]

For those who have made their own ink pads---WHAT do you put the foam, sponge, cut n' dry ON to be able to use it as an ink pad?

I do not have cut n' dry yet, but I thought about buying some sometime to make ink pads using a couple of reinkers (Brilliance --yellow and purple) I picked up from Tuesday Morning (I don't own the Brilliance yellow and purple in ink pads, thus I would need to make my own to use them).  Right now I have just reinked some of my colorbox cat eyes that have dried out with those Brilliance reinkers (and just to note: ironically I had a dried out purple cat eye that I use the Brlliance purple reinker on and I have a yellow one to use the yellow brilliance reinker with). 

I thought about gluing a distress foam pad to an extra stamp block I have, ink the foam pad with the reinker, and then store in a zip lock bag...

Any experience or ideas I'd love to hear.

[howdyheidi]

I know some companies sell a dry ink pad in a box that you can just apply your ink to.

I have seen Tim Holtz and Jennifer McGuire use the cut n dry and then save it in a zip lock bag.

Looking forward to the other suggestions!

[Far North]

Manufactures use foam ink pads for pigment inks and felt pads for dye inks.  This is so the ink is suspended in the pad properly for use with a stamp.  Cut N Dry comes in both a felt and foam version. The Stamp Pad Foam version is about 1/2 " thick...which looks thicker than the manufacturer's  Brillance pad. 

I use tiny pieces of Cut N Dry to color small areas with ink. I ink either directly from the inkpad or smears on my craft sheet.  Tim has made videos on inking Cut N Dry with the distress reinkers for a specific stamp.  It works wonderfully but I only use them every couple years since they are inked for specific Christmas stamps.  I wrap the inked CND in wax paper and store in resealable plastic bags.

Hope you have read the purpose of Brillance inks is for glossy surface as well as other things.  I like it for vellum, glossy cardstock, etc but am not fond of it on regular cardstock and find it smears easily before drying.  I would not consider it a substitute for colorbox inks.

Yes, there are dry inkpads of various sizes and styles. 

Is the ink blending foam similiar to a foam ink pad? ...it doesn't look like it to me.

[yellowcherrios]

Heidi, that was what I was thinking of storing in ziplock bad---but then I was wondering how to get it out and use w/o always getting ink on my fingers---thus Jan, your way of wrapping the CND in wax paper would help out with that delima for me.

I do not think I have ever used Brillance on glossy surfaces!  so I have to say Jan that I did not know the information you shared, lol!  I am going to try that out and see the difference.  I sometimes get the nice shimmer on CS and sometimes I do not when using Brilliance---and I have always wondered why, but thought it may had been something I did (like not inking the stamp enough with the ink or maybe I inked it too much and pushed the shimmer aside, etc).  I am glad you pointed out the use of Brilliance so I can observe now.  I have always thought that Colorbox and Brilliance are two different products---one has shimmer and one doesn't---but I have recently read that Brilliance comes in Pearlescent and Matte!  So now I do have to learn the difference b/w Colorbox and Brilliance matte colors....

I did notice that when I made a small cat eye ink pad using the distress foam (note: this cat eye was totally dried out/hard archival ink pad that I was able to pull the pad off the base---then I cut distress foam and glued to base, then inked with Brilliance), the ink was gobbed on and thus is stamped messy and the stamp would slide no matter what......but with the other dried out cateye that the original foam was still soft just didn't lend much color anymore, I reinked and stamped, and it did not gob the ink on and the stamp did not slide with using this reinked cateye--------so I agree with Jan that all sponges/foam are not the same to ink a pad-----now I am interested in how CND behaves.