ThermoMorph...

...if you've never heard of it read on.

Disclaimer: Although I received the product free of charge in order to try it out, I have not been paid for this review and the company stressed that they wanted me to give my honest opinion of their product.

A couple of weeks ago I received a very nice email from a guy called David Barrett. He had seen my Blog and wondered if I would be interested in trying out his product to see if it would be a useful thing to add to my crafting stash. Having given it some thought, I decided to give it a go and the ThermoMorph was duly requested and arrangements made to deliver it to Mum as she was more likely to be around at delivery times.

The box arrived very quickly and it contained this...

...a 500g tub of little white balls...

...lots & lots of little white balls.

Now I've never carried out a review of this type before so I wanted to make sure that I followed the instructions and gave the product a fair chance. The blurb says "ThermoMorph are mouldable plastic pellets that you heat up and mould into any shape or form. You're able to instantly fix things, make things, sculpt things or mould things; the uses are endless". Well that sounded pretty impressive but would it actually do what it said on the pot? Only one way to find out...

I love making embellishments from Ultra thick embossing powder or even just the ordinary embossing powders...

 ...and I know that with the help of a silicone mould...

 ...I can come up with something like this embellie that was used on a recent card that I made.

So the test for me was, how would ThermoMorph perform when used in a variety of moulds...

 ...some tiny, some very detailed, some not so detailed.

The pellets have to be added to (just off) boiling water and they become usable within 2 mins. I decided that the kitchen was probably the best place to try this as I would have a large heat-resistant, wipe-able surface and of course the kettle.

The product did what the instructions said - it turned clear and clumped together so that it could be moulded.

I tried it in the moulds as you can see...

...the first obvious difference to embossing powder is that the substance does not 'self-level' and it does not 'shrink' back in anyway. So my first efforts were a bit messy...

...but even on the tiny moulds it took on the detail really well. If you are wondering what is going on here...

 ...I added some embossing powder to the ThermoMorph to give it some colour - I still over-filled the mould because the product wasn't manipulating quite so easily but I think that this was because the water was starting to cool down (the instructions say that you have about 2 mins to work with the product before it starts to harden). It took very little of the embossing powder...

...to give the ThermoMorph a hint of colour.
I still had quite a bit of the ThermoMorph left...

 ...so I refreshed the hot water and returned it to the bowl...

 ...I found that it was soon as pliable as it had been to start with and I was able to produce this little lot within a very short space of time...

...and as you can see, the embossing powder gives it just a hint of colour and sparkle...

 ...I think you can also tell which ones were my second attempts as they show the details beautifully and look a lot tidier around the edges. You really don't need an awful lot of equipment to use this product...

...a bowl, boiling water and I used the tongs to stop myself from scalding my fingers when lifting the product from the hot water but it is soon cool enough to work with your hands...

What did I think of the product?

Well I have to say I was pretty impressed. It worked well in all the moulds I tried and even produced a pleasant effect when I added the coloured embossing powder. You do need to get used to the feel of the product and by my second attempts, I was able to judge the sort of quantity that I needed to use in each of the moulds. The fact that you can return it to the hot water to make it more malleable is a bonus and I also found that you don't have to wait until it has completely solidified before you can eject it from the mould - a great time saver if you need to do multiples of an item.

I have to admit, I was a little concerned about the price - the 500g tub retails at £19.95 - but, the eleven items I made above used less than two tablespoons of the product and if I compare this to items that I could purchase from one of my local craft shops (they make their own moulded embellishments from embossing powder), these eleven items would have cost me more than the tub of ThermoMorph.

The company say that there are other things that you can do with this product but all I have tried so far is the use with silicone moulds.

The product can be obtained from Amazon and having just checked that the link works, I also noticed that the price is currently showing as £17.95.

I am attending an all-day crop tomorrow and I think I'll take the tub along with me so that a friend can also have a 'play' and see what she thinks about the product.......................................................