We are back with another MFT Creative Chat! I just love this monthly feature! I love to see how the rest of the MFT Design Team organizes their goodies.
This month we are looking at ink pad storage. As you will see my ink pad storage is pretty simple and boring! I used to have three of the large SU ink carousels to store my SU ink, but I sold them and all my SU inks shortly after I left company.
Last year I purchased some Adirondack dye-based inks. These inks are made by Ranger. They come in three color ranges for a total of 48 colors. There are 24 Earthtones, 12 Brights and 12 Lights. I have al but two of the ink pads. I have been quite happy with the coverage that I get from these inks. They are not perfect with my clear stamps, but they are way better than the SU inks were.
I currently store these ink pads right on my desk. They sit in front of my Copic marker stands. I like having these pads close by as they are the ones that I use most often.
One of the features that I love about these ink pads is that they sit on top of each other perfectly! Each pad "locks" into the one below it. I don't have to worry about the pads falling over, which I love!
Each pad has a little area for you to add a color label if you want to. Of course, I had to add a label to each one! LOL I love being able to easily see what the color is.
I keep a color chart of these inks on my desk. I used an MFT heart stamp and X-Press It card stock. It's always a good idea to stamp your sample sheet on the same paper that you usually use to stamp. Inks can appear a slightly different color on different card stock.
I find this color chart to be incredibly helpful when I am stamping. It's great to be able to see the actual ink color in a quick glance. It also really helps when I am trying to match patterned paper to an ink color.
Beside my Adirondack inks sits my two most used ink pads, Memento Tuxedo Black and Memento Rich Cocoa. These are the inks that I use when I color with Copics. I can't say enough about this ink! It is my favorite ink for stamping!
The top of my Tuxedo Black pad also gets used for mixing Copic colors. The top of the ink pad is just so handy sometimes! I usually wash off the top off the pad every few weeks. I wait until there is almost no white showing and then I clean it up so I can use it again.
I do have a few other ink pads that I just don't use as often. These ink pads are stored on my shelving unit in a KASSETT box from Ikea. I really do use these boxes for everything.
In one of the boxes I have my Brilliance ink pads, Staz-On ink pads, Encore Metallic ink pads and Versamark ink pads.
The same box also contains my Distress Inks. I also keep all my re-inkers for these ink pads in the same box.
The one tip I can offer about ink pads is to make sure you buy a re-inker at the same time, or as soon as you can after purchasing an ink pad. There is nothing worse than an ink pad that is too dry. A properly re-inked pad can last for years!
Be sure to check out Kim's Blog to see how the rest of the ladies store their inks. I am guessing that it will be more exciting than mine!
