Lovely BetterPress Florals

June 29, 2023

Hi everyone! Hope you’re having a wonderful day!

I am back with another card today as I am on a bit of a creative roll this week it seems. Today, I am sharing my first card using the new Spellbinders BetterPress System. Below is a picture of what comes in the box from the Spellbinders website.

I will be completely honest here, I actually expected to have a bit of a learning curve with this new system. I was thinking that it would be a lot like the Glimmer Hot Foil system which had a significant learning curve and lots of trial and error with shims, paper, foils, erasers, etc. Heck, I still have some trial and error with it.

My other concern was that it might be messy or complicated like other letter press systems have been in the past. Many years ago, I tried the We R Memory Keepers Evolution letter press and gave up after 2 attempts. Yucky!

To say that I was blown away by the new Spellbinders BetterPress System is an understatement. After my first “press” with this system I told my husband I was going into the Printing Press business, LOL!

Ok, so that might be a bit of an exaggeration but I believe that this system can make some fantastic cards and it is so easy to get professional looking results that will absolutely make Hallmark jealous!

The first thing I noticed about this system is that the Chase (the base with the handle) and the Platen (magnetic clear top plate) are a bit heavy. I was curious about the weight so I weighed it and it came in at 2 lbs. and almost 9 ounces so it has a bit of heft to it. It is quite a bit heavier than the Spellbinders Glimmer. Here’s a picture from Spellbinders of the Chase and magnetic plate to the left and the Platin to the right.

Out of the box I used the “exclusive” floral plate that comes with the BetterPress system and one of the BetterPress Cotton Card panels in Porcelain and the black ink pad that comes with the set.

The plates are colored differently than the normal Spellbinders cutting and foiling plates so that you don’t mix them up. The plates also feel a bit different than your other cutting or foiling plates. They have a bit of a texture to the back of them and obviously on the front side you’ll be able to feel all of the details of the plate.

While you can foil with the BetterPress plates on your Glimmer system, it is a one-way street so to speak. You cannot use your foil plates or your dies in the BetterPress system. To do so would damage the BetterPress system.

As the instructions state, I kept all of the shims on the Chase underneath the magnetic mat. I placed my plate onto the magnetic mat and inked it using the pounce and twist method. NOTE: to clean off your BetterPress plates and the magnetic Chase insert and the Platen, you will need to use Archival Ink Cleaner. Here’s a picture from Spellbinders of the Chase with plate being inked and how you tape down your Cotton paper.

I used the Best Ever Craft Tape (the yellow tape shown above) that came with the BetterPress and taped my cotton cardstock onto the Chase within the registration marks for the A2 size card. I found the Best Ever Craft Tape to be a bit too strong as it almost tore my cardstock when I removed it. You could absolutely use some washi tape, highlighter tape or similar.

Once it was ready, I placed the Platen back onto the Chase, paper side towards the inked plate and they click together because of the magnets on all 4 corners. There’s a nice gap between the paper and the inked plate on the Chase because of the springy magnets that keep the paper and plate separated until you put it in your die cutting machine.

Next, I ran it through my Spellbinders Platinum 6 machine. I didn’t run the Chase back and forth, just the one pass through and I removed it.

The reveal took my breath away. I cannot tell you how amazing the detail is on these plates and the feel of the impressed image onto the cotton cardstock is the coolest thing since sliced bread! Plus, the ink was dry to the touch so there isn’t any need to worry about it smearing or streaking when you touch the cardstock…and you’ll want to touch it, trust me. I honestly do not think that there is a stamp, red-rubber or otherwise that can give the kind of detail that you will get from the BetterPress plates.

For the finished card, I pressed the floral plate twice. I actually almost overlapped the leaves near the center because I did not get the plate placed far enough out but it worked out.

I used the BetterPress, A Little Message set to create the sentiment “On Your Special Day” and used the coordinating die to cut it out.

That’s another nice thing about the BetterPress plates, many of them come with the coordinating dies so it makes the price a little better when you get the plate and the dies. That just gives you more bang for your crafting buck as I like to say.

For the flowers, I used some Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Saturated Inks in Cantaloupe, Cheeky, Guava and a touch of Watermelon for the petals. Sunbeam for the flower centers and Pearfection and Celery for the leaves. All of the ink was blended on using the fine detail blending brush sticks.

Spellbinders has stated that the cardstock and ink used with the system is not compatible with alcohol ink markers but you can use water-based markers or watercolors or ink blending as I opted to do.

I popped my sentiment up on a die cut circle of colored “peach” vellum from my stash.

I added some dimensional foam to the back of the panel and added it to an A2 size top folding card base made from 110lb Neenah Solar White cardstock.

For now, the inside is blank but I think you could use this for a birthday or a wedding. I didn’t feel like there was a need to add any additional embellishments as I wanted all of the amazing details of the pressed image to speak for themselves.

If you run out and get yourself a Spellbinders BetterPress system, I don’t think you will be disappointed. If you are someone who struggles with the Glimmer hot foil system, don’t let that detour you from the BetterPress. You will love it.

I have seen a few people ask in some Facebook groups about “ghosting” images or impressions showing on their Platen after a few presses. That’s totally normal. You will get that with any system whether your die cutting, foiling or letter pressing. Currently in the Coming Soon section of the Spellbinders website you will see that they will have replacement Platen’s and Magnetic inserts available in July at some point.

Also, there are a bunch of fun holiday BetterPress plates in the coming soon section of the website. I see lots of fun Christmas cards in the future. Seems that I am going into the Printing Press business, lol!