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Hello all, it's my first time visiting so I hope this is an appropriate place to ask this.
I've been asked to stamp a design onto dark\black bookcloth with red ink, and before resorting to extreme measures I found this community and hope someone has some insight for me.
You might have better luck with acrylic paint than ink, you’ll need something very opaque to stand a chance of showing on a very dark fabric. What kind of stamp is it — line art, silhouette, sentiment? Is there any chance of you being able to use a stamp positioner and stamp multiple times in the same place to get a better coverage? Is the item something that’s going to be handled a lot and/or washed? Do you have a sample piece that you can test out options on before committing to the actual project?
Sorry, more questions than answers! Stamping on black is a big ask and fabric has its own set of issues as well!
I have never tried stamping or painting on fabric, but I learned when ordering promotional items that most commercial printers print first in white to create a lighter base and then print again in the desired color. In other words, to print pink on black, they'd first print in white and then print in pink -- making the finished product more expensive. It's doable and can be attractive, but takes some careful aligning. Good luck!
You might have better luck with acrylic paint than ink, you’ll need something very opaque to stand a chance of showing on a very dark fabric. What kind of stamp is it — line art, silhouette, sentiment? Is there any chance of you being able to use a stamp positioner and stamp multiple times in the same place to get a better coverage? Is the item something that’s going to be handled a lot and/or washed? Do you have a sample piece that you can test out options on before committing to the actual project?
Sorry, more questions than answers! Stamping on black is a big ask and fabric has its own set of issues as well!
I have a handmade stamp of some lineart, going on the cover of an artbook that likely won't see too much handling. I'll consider getting a positioner!
After more searching, I think my play will be to use a clear ink ( i think called like versamark) and then use a pigmented powder on top to create the effect. It may be a little textured, but it should seal up fine. I'll definitely have to test this out on scrap first.
I'll let yall know how it all goes
You’ve received helpful responses so far! I will add that when stamping on fabric I use pigment ink, not dye ink, and heat set it after it has dried using either an iron and a press cloth or throwing it in the clothes dryer on high heat. I have only stamped on light colored fabric, though. Using this method I was able to wash the garments until my kids outgrew them. Hope that helps!
Embossing powder over Versamark would be good on the opacity stakes. Your issue might be with powder sticking in the weave of the fabric. If you have a steady hand and plenty of patience that should be solvable though — use a fine paintbrush or even a pin/needle to remove the flecks of powder that shouldn’t be there before you apply heat to it. Alice in Md’s point about white first is a good one too if you did want to avoid the slightly raised effect you’ll get with heat embossing. Again, a stamp positioner would help with alignment for multiple stamping (but if you’re stamping on a book rather than a flat piece, a platform style positioner (which is most accurate) may not be an option, I guess).
If the lineart has very fine lines, you might find that the texture of the cloth stops you getting a good impression, only testing it out on a scrap first is going to tell you that though. Shout if it’s looking like that’s the case and we’ll see if we can come up with any troubleshooting suggestions.
I have stamped with acrylic paint on fabric with good results. My daughter in law wanted some black book cloth on the wedding invitations (they were accordian style with a continuing design across when opened and the text was on each page). Had never done anything quite like that before and had to do 300. Anyway, the pigment ink that I used from the refill bottle and painted it on was OK, but the paint did a much better job. Of course this was something that got very little handling and certainly would not need to be washed. Heat embossing would work, too, I would guess.
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Ink pads for dark fabrics?
