Tips & Tricks Friday - Felt or Foam? How do I reink my classic ink pad?

Approximately 18 months ago Stampin' Up!® changed from a felt pad in it's Classic Stampin' Pads to a foam one.  They have the same coloured inks, the same case so how do you know which type you have.

First open your ink pad and have a look at the texture of the ink pad.

The ink pad on the left is an older type felt pad, although you may not be able to see it in the picture the pad has a texture to it and the older ones may have strings escaping from the sides.  The foam pad on the right has a much smoother/shinier surface.

The second and probably easier way to tell is to look at the end of the ink pad when it's closed.

The felt based ink pad on the left has 'Classic' on the label while the felt based ink pad on the right has it's name, in this case 'Old Olive' on the label.  If there's not a label on the end turn the ink pad over and you'll find name labels in a selection of languages for you to choose from.

The main difference when stamping with the different types of ink pad is that the foam pad is wetter and juicier so you need to use a much lighter touch when inking up your stamps particularly with detailed images.  With solid images you no longer need to do a twist and tap multiple times to get the image inked nicely.

Because of the different texture of the ink pad the tricks I use for my felt based ink pads don't work so well for my newer foam ones.


 
For those of us with the older felt based ink pads here is one of my first You Tube videos showing how I reink my felt based pads.  Look how much cleaner my old olive ink pad looked in the video all those years ago.

The main difference when reinking a foam based ink pad is that the thin end of the reinker bottle gets stuck in the foam so can't be used to spread the ink.

Here's my foam based ink pad after dripping the ink over the surface.  You can see it was drier in the centre of the pad.

Using the back of a teaspoon in a movement like spreading icing massage the ink into the pad.  I know others also use clear blocks, bone folders, anything with a smooth surface will do the job well.

If your foam based ink pad is not stamping images cleanly and you don't have an ink refill to hand use the back of a teaspoon as above to redistribute the ink from the edges into the centre.  This should keep you going until you can order a refill.