Keeping Your Ink Pads Moist and Clever Glycerine Uses

 

I don't normally talk about an individual product but I think this one deserves some discussion.

As we all know, some brands don't make reinkers for their stamp pads and that makes their ink pads nothing more than an expensive consumable.

This product, Ranger Ink Refresher, can help keep those ink pads going a lot longer.  A couple of sprays of this on your stamp pad and allow it soak in, will have your ink pad working like new. It will keep the ink in your ink pad moist and will stop the pad from drying out prematurely. You then only need to use your reinker bottle, if one is actually available, for refilling the ink pads with colour, not moisture.

Surprisingly, this bottle lasts for ages too, mine has lasted literally years and it's still going. Ranger also has a Tim Holtz version of this ink refresher, that's slightly more expensive, but I've found this version works well on Distress Ink pads too. You can read more about this premade product here.

There's even a recipe online, from The Frugal Crafter, to make your own. Lindsay says "add a teaspoon of glycerin to a 4oz spray bottle of water and you have dye based ink refresher, shake before using."

After using glycerine quite a bit for crafting, adding a tad more glycerine to the mix won't do any damage. Yet another online recipe for this solution is:

1tbs glycerin
4oz water
Shake well

I use straight glycerine directly on my blending brush as an extender and it has never damaged my ink pads, my brushes or the final blending results. You can see how I use the straight glycerine during blending here.

Straight glycerine will also replace clear inks like Versamark in heat embossing. Just add straight glycerine to a piece of paper towel, allow it to soak in and use that paper towel as your ink pad.

Lindsay also has a few more uses for glycerin in crafting that you can see in this post. Glycerine really should be considered a craft room essential! 

Don't forget, if you have any questions or problems, please reach out and leave a comment below. We will will reply as soon as we can. Or, if you're a little shy, you're welcome to contact us using the contact form for a more private chat via email.