Too good to be true? ? ?

Since this was "Black Friday" weekend I took advantage of sales and coupons at Mikes. I had seen this ink there before but for the asking price of $9.99 per ink pad it was something I was not going to be buying anytime soon . . .  until this weekend... Mikes offered a 60% off coupon of one item so this was my chance to pick this up and see if it is as good as they say . . .  Here is the ink pad:

This is a specialty ink pad as it is supposed to be 'glittery' when you use it for stamping without having to use embossing power and a heat gun. It is made by Tsukineko and although they certainly know all they need to in making ink pads these claims seemed too good to be true.

My first concern is will the glitter begin to separate from the ink on the pad? Will this ink combination take forever to dry? Will it naturally smear? Is it going to be a shiny finish like an embossed piece? Brought it home and used it on one of the tags I was making:

The tag base is #110 weight white card stock from Mikes. I did not use a tag die for this tag. I measured how wide and long I wanted the tag to be and then cut that out. Used the Stampin Up Tag Corner punch for the tag top. Punched a hole at the top of the tag. Using a small star stamp from the Stampin Up Star of Light stamp set I randomly stamped that all over the front of the tag.

Using the matching die set for that I cut out a gold glittered card stock star. Using the smaller, more detailed die from that set, I cut out a white glittered card stock star. I put these two stars together using a brad. Using a dauber I sponged the edges of the tag with the same gold ink. I also stamped a greeting stamp from that stamp set at the bottom of the tag. Here is a photo to show the sparkle and shine of this ink:

I made a second tag using navy blue card stock and the Encore silver ink to show the difference between these inks:

This photo shows that ink better:

Although the silver ink is shiny it does not have a sparkle to it like the Delicata gold ink does. Am happy I bought the gold ink pad and plan on buying the silver ink pad but not without a serious coupon! TFL