Tim Holtz is one of the rock stars of paper crafting. Once, I saw him give a demonstration at a craft industry trade show. During the demonstration, he mentioned that he uses reinkers for everything except their intended purpose.
My main takeaway from that experience: Reinkers are really and truly useful items to have in your craft supplies stash.
Based on those casual remarks of Tim’s, it doesn’t seem that I am using my reinkers to their fullest potential. However, I will explain the ways I am most frequently using them:
If you have an ink pad, you can use a reinker in the same color to refill it when it gets dry. You do this by simply opening up the ink refill and squeezing a bit of ink onto the dry ink pad and then waiting a bit to allow the ink pad to absorb the ink.
You can apply the ink from a reinker directly to an ink blending tool and use it for ink blending, stenciling, creating backgrounds or other purposes. If you don’t already know how to do this, you’re invited to learn about ink blending techniques HERE.
You can give reinkers to your kids or grandkids to use for decorating their walls.
Just kidding!
Seriously, you should probably keep your reinkers away from your kids, unless they can be trusted not to decorate their walls with them. Just saying.
Reinkers and ink refills plus a mister bottle
Best Reinkers and Ink Refills for Ink Blending and Paper Crafts
A Tin of Distress Oxide Reinkers and Other Reinkers; Nuvo Spatulas; Pops of Color by Scrapbook.com; and Stencils by Simple Stories
The following are reinkers I own, use and recommend for ink blending, stenciling, mixed media art projects, and paper crafts:
1. Catherine Pooler’s Premium Dye Ink Refill in the Uptown Color
Catherine Pooler Premium Dye Ink Pad and Reinker in the Uptown Color From the Party Collection of Inks
”Uptown” is a deep teal color that looks fresh and fantastic with a broad range of other colors. I use this reinker primarily for refilling my “Uptown” ink pad, which I use frequently; it is one of my most-used ink colors.
I’m sure this ink color would blend beautifully with others, but it is very bold, dark and prominent, so I tend to not want to use it over sizable areas. I like to use it in small areas to highlight the most important page element to focus on; I also like to use it as an accent color. So, I don’t do a lot of ink blending with this color, but I do use it quite often for other purposes.
Pinkfresh Studio Reinkers / Ink Refill Bottles: Blue Jay, Regal Kiss, and Mermaid Cove Colors (Blue, Deep Purple, and Teal Green-Blue)
This deep blue ink color is simply stunning. Use this color if you need a clean, vibrant blue hue of dye ink that blends smoothly and crisply with a variety of other colors.
Craft Supplies by Pinkfresh Studio: Blue Jay, Regal Kiss and Mermaid Cove Reinkers; Clouds Stencil; and Brighter Days Stamp Set
If you want to see examples of how Blue Jay ink blends up on paper, I invite you to check out a few ink blended, stenciled backgrounds I made with this ink color, along with a few other ink colors from the same manufacturer (including “Regal Kiss” and “Mermaid Cove,” which I’ve also mentioned on this list.)
Vertical Stripes Slimline Stencil and the Blue Jay, Mermaid Cove and Regal Kiss Reinkers by Pinkfresh Studio
4. Regal Kiss Dye Ink Reinker by Pinkfresh Studio
”Regal Kiss”is a deep reddish-purple ink.
You can see ink blended examples above in list item #3 above, because I blended several colors of ink together. I think they work beautifully with each other.
5. Mermaid Cove Dye Ink Reinker by Pinkfresh Studio
”Mermaid Cove”is a deep teal green ink.
You can see Mermaid Cove ink blended examples above in list item #3 above, because I blended this ink color along with a couple of others.
6. Walnut Stain Distress Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Walnut Stain is a deep brown ink color that’s reminiscent of the vintage walnut ink that calligraphers used to use before the popularization of synthetic inks.
7. Antique Linen Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Antique linen is a pale ink color that’s only slightly darker than off-white. It also has a greenish tinge to it, but I wouldn’t describe it as green.
8. Fired Brick Distress Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Fired brick is a deep orange-y brick red color that’s exactly what you’d expect given the color name “BFired Brick.”
9. Vintage Photo Distress Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Vintage Photo is a medium-brown, sepia-toned ink color that really does resemble the color of vintage photos.
10. Aged Mahogany Distress Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Aged Mahogany is a burgundy-brown color that is well-suited for stamping a broad variety of different images.
11. Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Salvaged Patina is one of my top frequently used ink colors. It is a gorgeous, trendy aqua or turquoise color that you can use for stamping a variety of images including floral designs, sentiments, and others. I use this ink color almost daily in my planner layouts, scrapbooking pages and card making projects.
12. Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Rustic Wilderness is a versatile, dark forest green color.
This is my most frequently used ink color. I use it for stamping evergreen tree motifs, Christmas projects, planner layouts and more.
This color gets such a workout in my craft projects because I stamp a lot of evergreen trees. I frequently go hiking, which means that I often make outdoorsy-themed scrapbooking layouts and planner layouts. Between outdoorsy stamp sets and Christmas stamp sets, I’ve collected a lot of pine tree stamps, and this is a fantastic ink color to use for stamping those.
13. Bundled Sage Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Bundled Sage is a medium-green ink that makes a perfect complement for “Rustic Wilderness.”
14. Kitsch Flamingo Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Kitsch Flamingo is a clean, vibrant pink color that’s prettier than Pepto Bismol, but it’s in the same general color family.
15. Scattered Straw Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
16. Twisted Citron Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Twisted Citron Distress Oxide Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger IndustriesOn the right is the Twisted Citron Distress Oxide Reinker; on the Left Is Catherine Pooler’s Uptown Reinker.
17. Carved Pumpkin Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Carved Pumpkin is a clean, bright medium-orange that works well for stamping wherever you need a pop of vibrant color.
18. Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries
Chipped Sapphire is a lovely, versatile navy blue color.
19. Dusty Concord Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz
Dusty Concord is a pretty, not-too-bright purple color that I use frequently in my planner layouts.
20. Stormy Sky Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz
Stormy Sky is a medium-blue that works well for stamping a broad variety of images. I use this color most frequently on outdoorsy scrapbooking layouts and sailing-themed scrapbooking layouts, but there are many ways you could use this color.
21. Speckled Egg Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz
Speckled Egg is a gorgeous light blue ink color that I frequently use for ink blending techniques. I love this color because it is really pretty, and it is light enough that it stands out beautifully when you layer it under other ink colors.
22. Milled Lavender Distress Oxide Ink Reinker by Tim Holtz
Milled Lavender is a stunning pale pinkish-purple ink color that I frequently use for ink blending techniques. This is another color that layers well underneath other ink colors.
23. Cherry Red Dye Ink Reinker by Gina K Designs
Gina K’s Cherry Red is just the right red for bunches of projects like traditional Christmas cards.
24. Jelly Bean Green Dye Ink Reinker by Gina K Designs
Jelly Bean Green is a versatile green color that works for stamping and inking a variety of images including leaves, foliage, grass, sentiments, Christmas designs and more.
25. Sky Blue Brilliance Pigment Ink Reinker by Tsukineko
Brilliance is a lovely, shimmery, opaque pigment ink that provides dreamy coverage and stamps beautifully. This is one of my favorite, most-used stamping ink colors.
Craft Project Ideas for Using Your Reinkers
Need some ideas for using your reinkers in craft projects? You’re invited to check out these:
The reinkers for Distress Inks and Distress Oxide Inks are two different sizes and materials. So if you have both Distress Ink reinkers and Distress Oxide reinkers, you’ll need two different sizes of storage containers for them.
I have a tin that’s sized for the Distress Oxide inks, but I don’t yet have the one that’s sized for the Distress Inks.
Right now, I don’t have enough Distress Ink reinkers on hand to justify buying a big tin to store them all in. So for now, I have mine stored in glass jars from the supermarket. If you buy pasta sauce or other food products in jars, after you’ve finished eating the food that came in them, you can wash them out and use them as craft storage containers.
With inks or any other supplies that could spill and make a mess, I like to store them in containers that will keep the mess contained in case the package opens or breaks. Both tins and jars work fine for that, in my experience.
So there you have it: That’s your guide to reinkers and ink refills for paper crafting.
I hope you found this list, and these ideas, helpful.
Over to You:
Which are your favorite reinkers, and what do you like using them for? Let’s talk about it in the comments section.
About Your Product Reviewer: Amy Solovay is a content creator and educator who holds a bachelor’s degree with a studio art minor; she has also earned a separate degree in textile design. Amy learned to stamp, stencil and collage as a small child, and she still enjoys mixed media art techniques all these years later. Beyond that, she enjoys introducing other crafters to the best new craft supplies, and she also loves helping crafters learn new techniques for making the most of the craft supplies they buy.
As an educator, Amy Solovay used to teach in-person college courses in trend forecasting, marketing and surface design at California Design College in Los Angeles.
Nowadays, Amy uses online platforms to teach digital courses to craft pattern designers, content creators and influencers all over the world. If you’re an artist, crafter or DIY enthusiast who is interested in earning income from your creative work, you’re invited to visit Crafterprise.com to learn more about monetizing the arts, craft(s) and / or DIY projects you do.
