Many of you have asked about how to ink a large stamp, such as our Wedding Invitations. Oversized stamp pads are generally only available in office quality inks, not the lovely and vibrant inks we like to use!  In this post, we will show you how to ink and print your lovely oversized stamp with a regular full sized stamp pad.

In this series of photos, we've used ColorBox's pigment ink in Harbor to stamp our Arrows Wedding Invitation. 

First, place your large stamp on a flat, sturdy surface, rubber side up. Or, simply hold the stamp, rubber side up, in your non-dominant hand. Take your ink pad (with your free hand) and hold with your fingers on either end of the pad.

With even pressure, apply the ink pad to the rubber. Dab the rubber from the top to the bottom, making sure to avoid saturating the mount. Be careful not to apply too much ink, or your imprint will appear muddied and blotchy. Also, be careful not to apply too little ink, as that might make your imprint too light and dry. We recommend making test stamps on scrap paper to get a feel of the right amount of ink, before going straight to stamping your mail-ready invitations. 

Flip the stamp, rubber side down, and line up evenly with your stationery. Lightly press on the stamp, making sure to apply pressure to each of the corners and middle. 

Hold down the stationery with one hand, and lift the stamp off of the stationery with the other hand.

Voila! A lovely stamped Wedding Invitation!

Below we've filmed a tutorial, in case you want to watch us stamp in real time! Hooray for our first ever video tutorial! 

Let us know in the comments if you have any tips and tricks of your own for printing large stamps!

- Emily -