Hi Laura,
So glad to hear that the line has contributed to your creative spirit. It's very fulfilling to hear that.
Here's my list of items that I use a lot of. It should be noted that some of these items are just the items that happened to come by my desk at one point in time or another and they happened to work for me. I haven't done a great deal of the testing of new products as they're released and, quite often, new products will be out there for a while that I'm completely unaware of for a while. I'm in the industry but when it comes to accessories I'm just like anyone else. Sometimes manufacturers will send out something for me to try out but that's not often.
Glossy Paper: I came into rubber stamping using Kromecote glossy paper when I worked for A Stamp In the Hand Co. (80's/early 90's) then the King James brand "came along". I thought the King James was a little better than Kromecote in the way it handled a couple different brands of ink. For some reason certain brands of inks dried dull on the Kromecote or the inks actually kept "bleeding" after stamping was complete. Specifically, my black impressions didn't stay crisp if they were stamped over my layers of coloring. This was very early in the life of raised dye based ink pads and I think some of the binders used in those pad inks were thicker than they are now so I don't think this would happen as much. But, if I just use spray fix or an acrylic spray on my scenes, after I stamp them, I never have a problem with any paper-ink combinations. King James has been out of business for a few years now so we're back to Kromecote. There's a new type of Kromecote called Kromecote "Glass". Marcos Papers sold that in smaller sizes a few years ago and were the only ones to be doing this as far as I know. That paper worked well with the inks that I use as do any of the Kromecote lines. I have a lot of King James in my supply still but would have absolutely no problem with Kromecote.
Matte paper: I have several and I don't even know the names of them I'm afraid to say. I love going to these paper warehouse types of stores and, over the years, I've just amassed a collection of various matte papers which there seems to be an endless supply of in terms of surfaces and manufacturers unlike glossy papers. I seem to have a weakness for certain papers. I'm tactile in terms of my dominant sense and I love papers of all sorts.
I buy most of my paper from Kelly Paper living here in Southern California. It's a chain that mainly supplies the printing industry but they're also open to the public. They have a website that they sell off of and I've always encountered nothing but the absolute best from them in terms of customer service in the past. They sell by the ream or larger only though which is a problem for diversity in our craft supplies. I have reams of glossy paper and about 3 reams of different smooth white matte paper in my supply that I use for stamping. For other papers, where you wouldn't want or need that kind of quantity, I would try other suppliers. I've bought from Marcos Papers that really do well catering to the stamping community and really know their products as it relates to stamping and scrapbooking and I'll pick up papers in individual sheets or small packs of papers from stamp stores that I come across.
Inks: I use Marvy Matchable inks. I love the material of the pad itself, the ink density, and how the pads stack for storage reasons. These are the foundation of my colors and I use them all. I use the black for my basic black as well.
I use Ranger Industries inks like the Adirondack Lights for my base colors. They're light, bright, and thick and provide a great foundation color to build on. I like the Distress Inks for the range of browns and different tones of a red, green, and blue.
The range of Memento inks is very promising. Fade resistant, saturated, thick, with a nice range of tones, they can make a nice addition to a collection. I like how they stack as well and have a color coding label for the sides.
The vivid range of inks is really nice if you like blues. There's quite a few different versions of blue that I really like. There's a wide range of blues between a primary blue and blue greens that I love to use for water.
I don't use every one of these brands of ink in all of my scenes but they're in frequent rotation.
I've used the Copic markers only once and really like them. We had an informal scenic stamping retreat last summer in Chicago and one of the stampers let me try hers out. The pens didn't disappoint. Studio 2 was a line that was around in the 80's and 90's. I used them in college on some projects and loved how you could push the ink around and manipulate it with more alcohol on blender pens or just on a cotton swab. For stamping, I typically used them (Studio 2) to color more detailed areas and objects in scenes after I colored them with the dye based inks. This scene uses this application:
http://stampscapes.com/fusion03.html
The mushrooms and tree trunks have alcohol inks on them --over the top of some dye based inks. You can see that alcohol ink-type of texturing on them. I like how you can layer dye based colors on top of the water based colors without anything smearing.
The airbrush application of Copic markers is great as well. Letraset used to have a line of pens that used the same system called the Letrajet --later changed names to the Tria Pen and airbrush system. I thought this would be perfect for stamping but the price point made it impractical back in the 90's for most people. I loved it though but didn't like the price of the pens which is a little problem with the Copics for me. Copic markers are superior to the Studio 2 pens and the airbrush system is better than the old Letrajet. The range of colors is similar to the range that's found in the Chartpack and Design pens that designers use for comprehensive design layouts. Just about every hue, value, and tone seems to be covered.
I haven't invested in the pens as of yet as, again, the price point of them tends to really put the question in my head if I really need them. I'm like anyone else --I see that $5/pen type of price one something and realize how many pens I would probably want and I tend to have to really think about it before pulling the trigger. I have a feeling that I'll probably pick up a set at some point in time though as I can see myself using them all the time and would feel that they could improve the scenes. I still have my Studio 2 pens --a complete set of a could values but those pens are smaller and don't have as much ink so I wouldn't use those over a large area of a scene so the Copics would fit the bill for a wide range of applications. I wish the pens were more like $3 each or so though but I think you get what you pay for and think that at their current price, they're still worth the money. But I wish they were more like $3! [laughing]. ~K
Can you tell us what brand names you use?
I really want the Copic markers and the air brush system and am thinking of asking for them for my b-day comming up(well at least a start on them) I was thinking you would really only need 24-36 colors as they are blendable, they are refilable and have replacement nibs. When you think about it they are a lot like a good stamp pad you have refilled over and over and they are more versitale. Thanks you again for your helpful words, keep up the wonderful work, your friend in stamping, Laura
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