impressabilities - a bit of a let down

I've had my Spellbinders Impressabilities since they were first released. I had high hopes--the cards made by the design team had looked wonderful. They sounded so versatile, too. I was a bit surprised to see how thin they were when taken out of the package.


I knew that they had to be fairly lightweight. After all, I'd read that they could be cut apart so that smaller designs or only parts of designs could be used to emboss, deboss, stencil, or letter press. I hadn't expected them to be quite so delicate though. But okay, I'd give them a chance.

Now I love to dry emboss, so naturally, that was what I had to try first.


Well, I was unimpressed after making my first pass. I decided to mist the card stock and try again. I saw an improvement. This was Georgia Pacific card stock, by the way.


Here are those same sheets of card stock from a slightly different angle so that the embossing is a little easier to see. Not super deep embossing but it's distinct.

Now, I'll admit that I haven't tried stenciling or letter pressing. Not sure how well this particular Impressabilities template would do anyway--it was somewhat curled and a bit misshapen after the embossing passes, and it would take some work to get it to lie nice and flat. But as far as embossing, I think what I'll be doing from now on is recalling that these are very thin, and the impression can only be expected to be as deep as the thickness of the template. It's not going to be a deep, crisply embossed image like those produced by embossing folders. On the other hand, the impressed designs do look more crisp and detailed than those produced using texture plates--I don't think that they would hold up as well for multiple passes though.

Overall, these are just okay. They'd probably be best used for stenciling or letter pressing. They don't seem to be sturdy enough to hold up well for embossing or debossing, and for the price I think I'd rather stick to embossing folders or even texture plates which allow me to use them over and over and over again without worrying about ruining them. Even regular brass stencils would hold up better and give a slightly deeper impression since they're thicker. So, kind of a bummer that for me they didn't live up to expectations, but I have to say that I'll still love Spellbinders for their Nestabilities.