Review - Crafting with the Epson EcoTank ET-2500 printer

As a parent to young children and as a keen crafter, we get a lot of use out of our family printer. But we speed through printer cartridges so quickly that it does limit me, especially if I want to print in colour. I seem to be constantly printing out colouring sheets for Mia, and I must admit that I'm often put off printing things which would otherwise be fun, because I'm worried about using up all our ink.

I was recently given the opportunity to try out the Epson EcoTank ET-2500 printer. Instead of printer cartridges, this printer has refillable ink tanks. Although the cost of the printer, with an RRP of £229.99, is slightly higher than other printers on the market, this printer, which includes your first set of ink bottles, will print up to 4000 pages in black or 6,500 pages in colour. When you do need to replace the ink bottles, which for an average user is two years away, they are very reasonably priced with an RRP of £7.99 for each of the four bottles needed. 

I was a little nervous initially about filling the ink tanks, as I've heard that it can be a messy process. But it was easy. It's very obvious where each colour needs to go, so you just need to remove the lids to the tanks (there's a handy holder to keep them out the way), open the bottles, and pour the ink in.

There is a clear window on the side of the ink tank so you can easily see how much is left. When you have filled up the ink bottles you need to let the printer charge which takes about twenty minutes.

You can print wirelessly to the printer which is very handy for us as we have two desktop PCs in different rooms of the house, and there is also an app you can download for your smartphone meaning that you can print remotely even when you're not at home.

Having not really had a decent colour printer at home before, I was keen to see how well the printer would cope with some colour printables. I turned to my favourite resource for such things - Twinkl - and looked for a few simple papercrafting downloads to print out.

I was really impressed with the quality of the print, it's certainly better than colour printers that we've had in the past. The colours are clear and vibrant and it picks up all the details. I can see us doing a lot more paper crafting in future now I'm not constantly worrying about using up the colour cartridge! These nodding Easter bunnies are a fab Easter decoration and now I feel happy to print out and build an entire warren of them.

I have also discovered the world of free scrapbooking paper, which is available to print out for use in your own crafts. I printed out a sheet of free yellow gingham paper which I found here - Vintage Check Papers. Then I just wrapped it around an empty cardboard tube, secured in place with double sided tape, and added a band of pretty washi tape around the bottom. It's perfect for displaying my tissue paper flowers on my windowsill and brighten up a grey day!

On the same site I found some free Easter printable scrapbook papers. I printed them out and used them to make a simple Easter basket with a handle which can be filled with sweets. The egg decoration comes from the free printable Easter memory game.

We are really pleased with the Epson EcoTank ET-2500 printer, and I'd definitely recommend it. I love knowing that we are a long way from running out of ink and it gives me the confidence to print what I want to when I want to without worrying.

I received the printer in exchange for this review.