A: The key to stenciling with paint is having very little paint on your applicator. A local sign-stenciling business uses cheap makeup wedges and taps off almost all the paint before applying it to the project. I have dedicated a couple of my blending brushes to acrylic paint, and I have been pleased with how well they work - again, the key is using as little paint as possible. I usually squeeze out a little paint onto a craft mat and tap the brush into it, then blend in a circular motion on the mat first to even it out before applying it through a stencil. The brushes have synthetic bristles that clean very easily with a prompt rinse in warm water.

A: You reminded me of a Mix-ability challenge I hosted a few years ago where we used a syringe to create an ink or watercolor splat for a background. You can find that post HERE with a link to the video.

A: There are so many ways to use them! Dye inks are bright, crisp, and transparent, so they're great for solid and outline stamps. Since they are water soluble, the inks can be used for watercoloring - this is how I use them most. You can stamp an outline and blend it out with a wet brush for a soft watercolored look, tap some ink onto an acrylic block to use as a paint palette, or press cardstock into misted ink for a 'smooshed' background. Dye inks are also great for brushing, brayering, and blending, and they are ideal for resist technique with wax and embossing images. You can even apply your inkpad directly to paper. Here are some tutorials in our archive using dye inks to get you started - you can use 'dye ink' as a keyword in our tutorial section to find more!
Direct To Paper (DTP)
Sponge & Spritz
Wet Paper Watercoloring
Stamped Brayer Blending
Wrinkle Free Distress

A: I have several collections but a predominating theme in my stamp library is nature, My biggest category is floral stamps - according to Evernote there are over 900 stamps, digis, dies, and stencils with that tag! I also have a collection of special vintage wood mount stamps... I am always on the hunt for Nancy Cole's sentimental images of sweet children in nature (Stamps Happen and Inkadinkado), and I can't get enough of Stampa Barbara's anthropomorphic frogs!