Aleene's Tacky Glue in the gold bottle is most likely one of the first "craft" glues I ever owned, thanks to Aleene's Creative Living tv show that aired from about 1985 to 2000. Up until that point, my go-to glue would have been white school glue, or even glue sticks and glue guns, both of which would have been relatively new weapons in my adhesive stash. I may have even used scotch tape or masking tape, but that was the extent of my glue experience in my "early years".
 
I have used Aleene's Tacky Glue for many types of crafts over the years. The project I recall best was making my daughter's first Halloween bag out of felt in the late 90's, and gluing it all together with Aleene's Tacky Glue. It works wonderfully for sticking googly eyes to pompoms, felt pieces to themselves, building a wood veneer doll house, sticking on all the doll house accessories, etc. It just seems to work great sticking stuff to stuff, in a general way. Definitely an all around good crafting glue to have at home. It's sticky so it grabs really well, but still allows for moving the item around before it sets fully.
 
I bought a fresh new bottle of this glue just a few weeks ago, during a handmade card-making supplies jaunt at Michael's with Cardamama C. I used it on some paper when we were working on a large banner and it puckered the paper and did not look good at all. I won't be using it on card making or scrapbooking again, plus I have read that it's not recommended for items which need washing (eg- clothing, stuffed toys, dishes, etc). However, if you need a good multipurpose crafting glue, that isn't too expensive, Aleene's is a great one to have on hand.

A few weeks ago, I did a review of Zip Dry Glue and last week I reviewed Diamond Glaze. I was pleased to see that the fine folks at Zip Dry contacted us and and said that it sounded like I had a bad bottle of glue. They also gave some great tips on how to use it properly, which led me to their YouTube page, where I watched Mike demonstrate Zip Dry and other adhesives from their product line.

Cardamama C and I have been working on a special project for a client and I decided to try my Zip Dry Glue again. The results were not to my satisfaction. The glue was thick and stringy, which I expected based on my first experience with it. However, Mike the Glueologist mentioned that Zip Dry leaves no residue. However, I found it very difficult and messy to rub off the excess glue. I'm sorry to say that I pitched that bottle of glue straight into the garbage can. I will likely not try this glue again, as the price does not warrant me risking over $15 on a glue that may or may not be defective. (Sorry Mike.)

On to the Glossy Accents. I had heard that Glossy Accents was very similar to JudiKins Diamond Glaze. I picked up some Glossy Accents glue on Saturday as I had forgotten my Diamond Glaze at home and I needed a quick drying, strong glue that was not tacky when dry. I am very pleased to say that I am LOVING Glossy Accents. It does everything Diamond Glaze does, but one thing tipped the scale for me: the dispensing tip on the Glossy Accents is much finer and the entire bottle is transparent, which allows me to see where the glue is and to place a very precise amount exactly where I want it. Sorry JudiKins, Glossy Accents wins this round for me.

Have you used any of these adhesives? What has your experience been? Let us know!

Diamond Glaze by Judikins is a little gem of an adhesive that I love having as part of my glue toolkit. Diamond Glaze has a multitude of purposes that go beyond simply sticking two things together, though it does do that very well. A similar glue is Glossy Accents by Ranger Inkssentials.
 
I own a small 2oz (60ml) bottle of Diamond Glaze and was first introduced to it a couple of years ago when the Scrabble pendant craze on Etsy was huge. It's still a lovely and popular craft but it was big like the Beatles there for a while. I think Diamond Glaze can best be described as a finish that also happens to work as a glue. It adds a pretty glossy coating to all kinds of items, including paper and the infamous Scrabble pendant, which you can learn how to make right here. It also provides a raised, dimensional appearrance and feel when it is applied more thickly.
 
Diamond Glaze dries clear with no sticky residue, though you will see it due to its glossy finish. It is not flexible like other glues so it will crack when dried glaze is bent, but this is often a desired result, producing a crackled glass effect on craft projects.
 
Here are all the different ways I have used Diamond Glaze:

• Gluing tiny beads, flowers, sequins, gems, dew drops, pearls and googly eyes to my handmade cards
• Gluing down a bow to a page
• Gluing the center of a slippery bow or knot so it doesn't come undone
• Making Scrabble pendants
• Mounting paper to the back of glass tiles
• Adding glossy (smooth or crackled) details to paper on my cards
• Sealing paper onto small decoupaged items (like clothespins and tiny wooden boxes)
• Gluing tiny bits of paper to my cards

That's just a start to what can be done with this amazing glue. If I had anything to suggest as an improvement, it would be a better dispensing system. I would like to always be able to stand the bottle upside-down to minimize air bubbles, and I would wish for the dispensing tip to have a plug so that it doesn't clog with hardened glue between uses. Other than that, I think Diamond Glaze is fantastic!
 
Do you use Diamond Glaze? How about Glossy Accents? What do you think of it? What else do you use it for that I haven't listed above? Let us know in the comments section below.
 
Cardamama J

Today's handmade greeting card is based on MojoMonday sketch 192. It wishes the recipient a "Happy 30ish Birthday" and uses papers from Basic Grey beautifully distressed Vagabond collection. 

The colour palette is grey and blue with a touch of amber. I added a few small rhinestones for sparkle as well as a bit of glossy highlights using Diamond Glaze by Judikins.

Thanks for dropping by!

Last week I you about one of my most used, most preferred adhesives for making greeting cards, the Tombow Mono Adhesive Runner. It's been my glue of choice for many years now but I find that the refills can be expensive, considering how quickly I go through them with all the cards I make.
 
On a craft forum a few years ago, I heard about something called an ATG Gun, or Advanced Tape Glider. I read that it was developped for the picture and art framing industry, used to glue down photos and matting boards and the brown paper on the backs of large frames.
 
A few die-hard scrapbookers in the forums swore by it, despite its rather bulky size; never mind the initial expense of buying the gun itself, which was over $50 US in some online stores. I decided to stick with my little Tombow dispensers, though the speed at which I was going through refills had me reconsidering the ATG Gun.
 
Finally one day last fall, I went to Michael's here in Saint John, and saw that they had a new display stand with pretty pink ATG Guns, AND they were on sale plus I had a 50% off coupon. Score! I ended up getting my first Gun (and pink no less) for about $10. 
 
So now I am the proud owner of my very own ATG Gun. My initial impression was that the gun was indeed big, but it's not very heavy so I can forgive the bulkiness. Loading the tape onto it the first few times was tricky but I've gotten pretty good at it now. The applicator tip isn't as precise as I would like it to be; for tight corners, I still pull out my Tombow runner. But the sticking power of the ATG glue is amazing! It has a super strong hold so I no longer need to buy the Tombow Power Bond runner.
 
Every refill box for the ATG comes with 2 rolls of adhesive, equivalent to almost 5 & 1/2 Tombow cartridges. And at $16 (at my local Michael's store) for the ATG acid-free refill ($10 for general purpose), that's a saving of over $20 for the same amount of glue coverage. I can buy the ATG refills for even less, including shipping, online.
 
So over all, I am very happy with my switch to the 3M ATG Gun. I will continue to buy the Tombow dispenser too but I reserve that for finer detail work. The price was right and if you make a lot of greeting cards or do a lot of scrapbooking, I would even recommend buying it full price, as you will quickly recoupe the cost in savings over other dispenser systems.
 
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Let me know what you think? Do you use a tape runner adhesive? Which one? Have you tried the ATG? What are your thoughts? We would love to hear from you.
 
Cardamama J

Hi Cardamama J here. It's been a few months since I've created a card for the Sweet Sunday Challenge. My lovely husband gave me his cold so I've been miserably stuffed up for a few days now. I spent most of the day on the sofa, looking at beautiful handmade cards online. I finally got up the gumption to get myself off the sofa and into my craft room to make a card from today's sketch (SSS118).

A few days ago, I was looking at our Cardamama website stats and saw that somebody came to our site by searching for a handmade greeting card that said "Great job." That seemed a perfect fit for this week's challenge.

I picked up some really cute paper packs on sale recently at Michael's so I used them on this card. I also bought a few packs of individual letter sets, which are great for creating little banner greetings that I am so fond of. I hope you like it! In the meantime, check out the other great cards from the Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge over on Karen Giron's blog.

Hi there, Cardamama C here.  So I needed to create a handmade greeting card for a friend of mine.  I started with the usual, what does he like, what is he interested in....and I got stumped.  Sooo I decided to go more high level.  What do 30 something guys like... and it hit me... breasts. So this is what I came up with. 

So what is the motto of this blog post? If you are looking for a funny, thoughtful handmade greeting card for birthdays, bachelor parties, etc., contact us.

Oh and have a Double Delightful day.

Once I started getting serious about card making, I knew I needed a good adhesive that was going to allow the card to last well beyond the card giving occasion. Glue Sticks didn't have the long-term staying power I was looking for so I search for something better.
 
I don't remember if I discovered Tombow Mono Adhesive Runners on my own or courtesy of watching Kristina Werner tutorials, but once I tried them I was hooked! They are basically a roll of double sided tape dispensed from a cartridge. You place the tip of the cartridge on your paper and pull to coat it with the adhesive. I highly recommend the Tombow brand of runners and I have tried the Permanent (blue cartridge), the non-Permanent (green cartridge), and the Power Bond (red cartridge) versions and love them all for different things. I recommend buying the refillable cartridge as the refills are less expensive than the non-refillable ones.
 
The blue permanent runner is my go-to, all purpose paper adhesive. It sticks very well and can get into pretty small spaces. I have also used it to hold photos to cards, paper flowers, chipboard embellishments and more. The red Power Bond is my choice for gluing more textured or special finish papers together (like flocked, glittered, embossed, etc). The green non-permanent runner is perfect for making a stamping mask, holding paper in place when you use a circle scissor on it, for temporary placement of elements, for cutting out a sketched or printed shape out of your good paper, etc. Any residue from the green runner rubs right off the paper too.
 
If you are just getting started in making greeting cards, or even in scrapbooking, you will likely find this or a similar adhesive runner in your local craft store, office supply store, or scrap book supply store. In Saint John here, I buy it at Michael's. If you find that you are making so many cards that you are running through the cartridges very quickly, you will want to consider moving to a different adhesive runner system, which is what I have since done. I will tell you what that is next week. Stay tuned!

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Cardamama J

This is an odd one for me because I had read SO many great reviews for this glue that I just had to give it a try. It promised above all that it would never ever wrinkle the paper of my precious handmade cards (it didn't, sort of... more on that in a bit) and that it would glue anything down, any embellishment, would dry clear, and would be re-positionable when wet without leaving behind any residue.

Zip Dry Paper Glue is made by Beacon Adhesives. I purchased it at Michael's here in Saint John, New Brunswick (on the East Coast of Canada if you're not familiar with the area.) The first thing that struck me was the price. I found it to be on the expensive side at over $15 for a small bottle, but knowing that it had received such glowing reviews I bought it regardless of the price. When I got it home, I cut off the tip and turned the bottle over. It was much thicker than I thought it would be, sort of like cold honey in a bottle. Not at all what I imagined for a glue with the word "Zip" in its name. I squeezed the bottle and got an overwhelming scent of contact cement. The glue came out very thickly onto my paper. It didn't spread easily and though it didn't wrinkle the paper, it left bumps under the paper that I wasn't able to smooth out because the glue was so thick. I set the bottle aside and have not used it since. I really was disappointed with the Zip Dry Paper Glue but your experience may differ. Maybe I just had a bad batch. So for now, I'll stick with my preferred double sided adhesive, which I have yet to review.

That's it for this week. Again if you enjoyed this article, please click the [Like] button below or share this post on Twitter. Thanks for reading!

Hi! Cardamama J here and today I thought I would share with you my 5 favourite Card Making blogs. Wow it was SO hard to pick just 5, but these are the ones I go back to again and again. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.  

Kristina Werner
www.kwernerdesign.com/blog
Dawn McVey
dawnmcvey.typepad.com
Hanneke van Dalen
scraps-n-stuff.blogspot.com
Lisette Gibbons
lisettegibbons.blogspot.com/search/label/cards
Ingrid Danvers
ingriddanvers.com  

I am just in awe at how beautifully these talented ladies make their greeting cards. Their designs are pretty, colourful and clean. Some have beautiful layers of papers and embellishments without ever appearing to be cluttered or busy. All said, I think their cards are perfect.  

Please check out their websites and give them some bloggy love. They deserve every accolade.  

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Thanks!   Cardamama J