Let me start by saying I love Tim Holtz products, really love his distress inks. So when I seen his mask he designed I had to try them. Mask work basically like a stencil except you are using the mask to paint or ink over, you are not painting within the design but over the whole design. I watched the demo he did and it looked so easy and so many things you could do with them with paints or inks and much more. So I bought the mini mask floret 7 piece pack just to try them. I did as they said when you first get them you have to clean the parts you won’t need out. He showed that you just burnish the item over a scrap piece of paper and pull it away and Walla! You leave all the small items behind and you left with the perfect mask. Well not so easy. I spent 30 minutes trying to clean all the tiny parts out that would not come lose. I finally had to resort to using a magna fine glass and tweezers, even then that did not work well. So after I did get it cleaned up and was pretty well stressed at that point I gave myself a few to unwind cause I needed it…LOL Now time to try a new technique. I put a mask on my paper and did as it said which is to burnish it to the paper. I never could get it to bond good to the paper no matter how hard I tried. At that point I thought well maybe it is not meant to adhere so tight so did it best I could, and began to use my Tim Holtz distress inks over the mask. The mask began moving around some I had to be very careful not to blend to hard because I was moving it. When I was done and pulled the mask away I could see if the mask had adhered correct how great it could have been. But I was left with more of a fuzzy look, not sharp at all. The mask was not very sticky at all on the back right out of the package, so I knew it was going to have a hard time bonding it to paper. And I was right.
So here is my option on the Tim Holtz mask. If you just have to try them get the small mini mask set they only cost 3 bucks verses the large ones that run much more. Yes I am sure the large ones would be easier to use and prep but don’t know if I would want to pay extra just to find out they are all the same. Know I myself was very unimpressed with the mask, and I really would have loved for them to work. But for me it was a waste of money and time and a headache. Maybe it you add some of your own repositionable glue it would make a better bond with paper. But even with doing that the life span for the mask is still not very good. I would say it’s only good for so many uses, not an item for using in a mass production over and over. Don’t try to use these making your Christmas cards this year.
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