The Elusive White Ink
January 26th, 2012 by
Kalista
Somewhere along the way I fell in love with white font. Unsurprisingly (hello blonde), it took me a while to sort out that you can’t actually print white ink on a printer. Too late. I was in love. Nothing more I could do about it.
There are a few ways to get white ink, and all of them are either super expensive or super labor intensive. But they all turn out GORGEOUS! So I must have it. And seeing as I don’t sleep on a pile of money, this means that we need to go the labor intensive DIY route.
There are a few ways to achieve the white ink look. You can use letterpress, but I’ve heard that the white never tuns out that bright. So a better option if you have the room in your budget is engraving.
You can also use foil stamping, which turns out beautifully, but isn’t exactly the most affordable option.
You can also screen print your white text, which is a nice little (or big) DIY project! Or you can pay someone else to do it and keep some of your hair. It makes the white really pop, and gives it a nice vintage feel.
You can also have custom rubber stamps made and hand stamp all of your invites, like Michael and Tim here did (way to set the bar high, guys). Isn’t this stunning?!
And you can always incorporate white ink on the envelopes or in places inside the invite with a white pen. I wish I had handwriting this beautiful!
Sources: engraving, foil stamping, screen printing 1 & 2, stamps, pen
We decided to go with the screen printing option, because we really like the look of paint on paper. So now that I’ve finally agreed to be done with the design, we’re in the process of attempting to screen print all of our Save the Dates. And with all of the experience we have (i.e. NONE), this should be easy! We’re hoping to finish these up in the next couple of weeks, so I’ll have some photos and updates for you in the coming weeks.
Have any of you worked with white ink? Or have you screen printed your own invites? Am I going to hate myself by the end of this? I’d love to hear from you!
I could really use some words of wisdom and encouragement before embarking on this daunting DIY :)
January 26, 2012 at 4:20 pm, Sarah said:
I also had a similar issue. I really wanted vibrant colors on thick chipboard. i did a little research and found an amazing print company called ” Mama’s Sauce” . You can reach them through their website. They screen printed my invites on chipboard and they came out incredible and relatively inexpensive! ( The colors REALLY pop) You can also request samples from them too and I’ve seen some of their white lettering and its fantastic.
They are definitely a great choice and if you are not a designer like myself then they also have a full design service to help out with the design itself. Please feel free to email me directly if you want to know any more details.
January 26, 2012 at 6:08 pm, Kalista said:
Thank you so much Sarah! If we go crazy this weekend, I may just give Mama’s Sauce a call. It looks like they do a BEAUTIFUL job with paper goods. I’m sure your invites were stunning!!
January 29, 2012 at 6:16 pm, Hannah Mia said:
I love white ink too! I use it on my DVD cases for my logo and had a similar problem – I use a rubber stamp to stamp white slow drying ink and then pour on embossing powder – I then melt this with a toaster (super high tech). It comes out pretty well if you don’t mind it being labour intensive!
January 30, 2012 at 10:46 am, Kalista said:
Bless your heart, Hannah! Someone out there is as crazy as I am! What you did sounds way more intense than what we’re doing. I am IMPRESSED! I’m going to keep this style in mind for the DIY embossing technique, that’s really cool! Thank you for sharing :)
January 31, 2012 at 6:55 am, Kristina Juarbe said:
I love white ink!! I’m the same way, sometimes i want to use other color, but find myself using white most of the time, works so well on most backgrounds.
March 29, 2012 at 10:14 am, Save the Date Wedding Website | Engaged & Inspired said:
[...] our Save the Dates with you, and updating you on the screen printing process in our hunt for the elusive white ink! But this week I wanted to share our website that we created to go with our Save the [...]
April 05, 2012 at 9:45 am, Our Screen Printed Save the Dates | Engaged & Inspired said:
[...] told you a few weeks back about my obsession with white ink. Today is the tale of my hard-to-learn lesson that it isn’t the easiest thing to accomplish. [...]