Reported by Cassandra Darwin

Way back in January Tim Holtz unveiled a whole new line of stamping goodies at the CHA trade show.  I was the most excited to read about the Tim Holtz Grid Blocks by Stampers Anonymous.  I didn’t know much about them, except that they could replace all of my bulky acrylic blocks used for clear and cling stamps.  So, I got my name on a waiting list at my local stamp store, and had to wait 4 months for them to arrive!  Turns out they were worth the wait.

Here is the front of the package, although you can’t see much since they are clear blocks.

First thing I did when I took them out of the package was stack all 9 on top of each other to see how much space I need to clear for them.  Great news!  Just about an inch total.

Another shot with all of them stacked so you can get an idea of thickness.

 This is SO much less space then I was using before with my thick acrylic blocks (and these ones didn’t even have grids).  I stacked my 7 older ones up and they were about 3.5 inches.

I used one of my cling stamps on the first try, to see if I could get a clear stamped impression without too much trial and error.  You can see the thickness of the block and cling stamp below.

It was easy to line up the sentiment with the grid pattern on the front.  And I found that lining up another line of the grid with the bottom of my pink paper gave me a perfectly straight sentiment.  This could cut down on all the time I spend trying to straighten out a crooked stamp job.

Finished impression looks pretty good – this was the first try.

For my next one I used a cling stamp that has gotten a little bent out of shape.  Wanted to see if these thin blocks would have enough power to flatten it out without distorting the image.

And they did.  Once again it was easy to line up the image on the grid, and it flattened out with just a little pressure.  The finished image looked good too, but I forgot to take a picture.

So even though these were a fairly substantial investment in my eyes, they were worth every penny; I can save space and have the grids on all of my blocks now.  I even got two extra sizes that I didn’t have before.

One complaint, is that a week after I paid full price for this set, I saw a smaller set of the Tim Holtz Grid Blocks at Michael’s.  I did some quick math an figured that they would come out to about the same price per block.  But it is good to know if you just need a smaller set and happen to have a coupon handy!

Pros:

• Compact and lightweight
• Feature a grid pattern to line up images – most older blocks don’t have this