Pigment ink pads and heat setting?

frogurt814

I guess I'm a stamping noob.  I bought a silver ink pad (pigment ink) to stamp some stuff on the front of our wedding programs.  It's been a few days since I did some practice stamps, and they have not dried yet.

I started looking online and found out that pigment ink does not dry on non-porous surfaces.  Is cardstock a non-porous surface?  It is not glossy paper.

I have also read that you can heat treat the pigment ink to get it to dry, but I haven't been able to find any info on how to do that or what tools I would need for that.

Any help would be appreciated.

Karen's MOH

I am no expert, but this might help.
Generally pigment ink pads are used for embossing. They are specifically slow drying, so you can sprinkle the embossing powder on the ink, then heat emboss it (heat it up with a special tool). You can also use this tool to heat set it, like you said.

Normally, a hair dryer wouldn't be good b/c it can spray the powder all over. But in your case, I'd take a hot hair dryer to one and see how it goes. It should only take a few seconds each.

Interesting to know that they haven't dried even a few days later. I was always in a rush with the embossing powder so it wouldn't dry, but I guess there was no need.

frogurt814

Thanks for the advice.  I was actually thinking of trying out the hair dryer to see if that would help.

I did the stamps on Saturday, today is Wednesday, and the ink still smears when I touch it.

I also thought about buying some cotton paper or something along the lines of resume paper.  I thought that might be a more porous paper than cardstock.

Karen's MOH

I think you would be better off buying a different stamp pad than different paper, to be honest. But the hair dryer should help with the ones you already did.

lnisley

Pigment inks never fully dry on cardstock.  You can buy embossing powder to put on top, but you need to use a heat gun. (Can buy at any craft store)  A hair dryer blows the powder off.  I would just get an archival dye based ink