Waffle Flower | Grip Mat Review
Hi everyone! It’s a busy day today with two posts in one day, lol. Today I have a post to share with you to review the Waffle Flower Grip Mats. Waffle Flower was nice enough to reach out and ask me to review two different sizes of their new Grip Mats – the 8.5″x5.5″ and the 5.5″x4.25″. (All opinions are my own.)
The Grip Mats come in a variety of sizes are and made a clear photopolymer – similar to clear stamp but without the image pressed into it. The really nice advantage of this is photopolymer is an endless grippy surface that can be cleaned over and over again but still retain it’s grip. This makes it great for ink blending, stenciling, even stamping. I’ve made three cards using the grip mats and will share my experiences below.
On my first card I did both ink blending and stenciling with the grip mats. I LOVED stencilling using the grip mat as a base as it kept both the cardstock and the stencil in place very securely without causing any damage or curling to either. I attached the larger grip mat to my glass mat and got to work. To blend on this card I used ink blending brushes and had no trouble with the brushes on the photopolymer. I used a baby wipe for clean up and that was great. I also used the grip mat to ink blend the flowers and “thank you” and it made keeping the small pieces in place a dream and definitely kept the ink off of my fingers. I did encounter some staining with the inks I was using but this was not a surprise as they usually stain photopolymer. The staining does not affect the usablility of the mat at all. I have read you can use hydrogen peroxide to help remove the staining but I have not tried it.
I have a video on Instagram showing my process for making this card.
Products used:
Dies: Oversized Thank You – Print, Sweet Daisy Die (Waffler Flower)
Stencil: Swag Coloring Stencil (Waffle Flower)
Cardstock: Sugar Cube (Taylored Expressions), vellum
Ink: Bubblegum, Candy Corn, Mango, Mocha, Peapod, Guava (Taylored Expressions)
Other: Subsentiments Hello (Waffle Flower), 5.5″x8.5″ Grip Mat (Waffle Flower)
For these two cards I used the Grip Mats again for ink blending but I pulled out my Tim Holtz Distress Ink and went about making a huge mess, lol. (In a good way!). It was so easy to keep the paper from moving as I was blending, this time using foam blending tools, and hold the Love You cut out in place as I went (I wanted to make sure I had the inks where I wanted them so I did cut first and then blended and splattered. This time I kept the grip mat backing attached rather than adhering it to my glass mat so I could move everything to my splatter box. The ease of clean up with the Distress Inks was perfect – no mess at all.
Overall I have to say I am happy to add these grip mats to my crafty tool collection and I can’t wait to use them in my MISTI – I can see all kinds of uses for them there!!
Products used:
Dies: Oversized Love Print (Waffler Flower)
Cardstock: Sugar Cube (Taylored Expressions)
Ink: Cracked Pistashio, Blueprint Sketch, Peacock Feathers, Black Soot (Ranger Distress Ink)
Other: Subsentiments Hello (Waffle Flower), 5.5″x8.5″ Grip Mat (Waffle Flower)
Products used:
Dies: Oversized Hugs Print (Waffler Flower)
Cardstock: Sugar Cube (Taylored Expressions), clear acetate
Ink: Pickled Raspberry, Abandoned Coral, Dried Marigold, Black Soot (Ranger Distress Ink)
Other: Subsentiments Kindness (Waffle Flower), 5.5″x8.5″ Grip Mat (Waffle Flower)