birthday wishes

 Hello!  I'm popping in to share a card that I created using the brand new Waffle Flower Grip Mats.  Waffle Flower generously sent me two different sizes of the Grip Mat.  For today's card I used the larger 6.5 x 8.5 grip mat.  I do show a photo of the smaller 4.5 x 5.5 grip mat in it's new home, my mini MISTI.  I haven't decided if I will put the larger grip mat in my regular size MISTI, but most likely I will.   My card today is for the Paper Players. I went with anything goes. 

The Paper Players challenge is a color one of two shades of pink, a teal color and black.  I used the Waffle Flower Layered Box die set, Small Prints stencil and a sentiment from the Subsentiments Birthday die cut set for the card.  The background was embossed with a Spellbinders embossing folder.  I die cut the bows for the presents from glossy black cardstock.

Below are photos showing the grip mats and how they work.  The grip mats are made from high quality photopolymer, just like your clear stamps.  If you have a glass work surface like a Tim Holtz glass media mat the grip mats will grip onto the glass surface and not move.  In my photos I place a piece of white cardstock behind the grip mat so you could see the grid.

These are the two that Waffle Flower sent met.  There are two more sizes to pick from.  If you decide to try out the grip mats I would suggest watching a video that Waffle Flower put together for the launch of the Grip Mat.

This shows how I set up my grip mat in preparation to do some stenciling.  The grip mats come with two clear grids.  The grid is actually smaller than the Grip Mat.  Waffle Flower did this so that the mat can grip onto whatever surface you are using.  In my case the Tim Holtz glass media mat.  When you remove your mat from the packaging the mat is sandwiched between two clear sheets.  Hang onto the sheets to provide extra protection for your mats.   As you can see I laid my white cardstock on the mat and then place the stencil on top.  The stencil didn't move one bit!

Here you can see the stenciling after I finished.   The grip mat held everything tight and I didn't get any color seeping underneath.  I used Spun Sugar distress oxide ink for the dots, Kitsch Flamingo distress oxide ink for the stars and Mermaid Lagoon distress oxide for the stripes.   The next photo shows the tops of the presents on the grip mat after I inked them up with the same inks.   They held in place nicely.

Cleaning up the mat was pretty simple.  I just used my Lawn Fawn stamp shammy to wipe off the ink.  I haven't used dye ink on my mat yet, so cleaning that up maybe a little different. 

Final photo shows the smaller mat inside my mini MISTI.  The grip mat replaces the piece of black foam that is in the MISTI.   I added one of the grid sheets to the back of the mat before placing it in my MISTI.  I placed the second one on top to keep the mat clean. 

Overall I really like the grip mats.  I will say that it was my experience that the mat doesn't seem to work well with textured cardstock.  I needed to stamp on some watercolor cardstock and decided to try it out.   Even after pressing the cardstock firmly onto the grip mat, it would stay in place.  But I was still able to get the images stamped, as you can see. 

Thanks for staying with me for this long.   Have a wonderful day!