Since I’ve discussed wet glues and ATG, I thought I should also work with glue sticks and glue pens.  I added a category that a viewer asked for and that is whether they make the paper warped once dry.  The prices I provide are the best prices I found for them online and I’m sure you can find them cheaper in stores.

Here are my findings:

Elmer’s Washable School Glue Gel .28 oz 2 for $1.79 at Office Depot online.  Invisible when dry and glues well.  Didn’t warp the paper.  No warping, glues well and not visible.

RoseArt Washable Glue Stick .21 oz 3 pack is $4.78 on ebay.  It is really gummy and might have been old when I bought it, so I can’t hold that against it.  Very shiny when dry and the small lumps of glue didn’t flatten with time.

Paper Studio Glue Stick (for photos) .28 oz at Hobby Lobby $4.99 for a 6 pack (with no discounts.)   Laid down well, not as sticky initially.  Sticky initially, warps the paper, but glues well.

Scotch Wrinkle Free Glue Stick .27 oz 2 pack $1.27 at Target.com.
Strings like a glue gun, but sticks really well initially.  Warps and shiny.

Glue Pens
Elmer’s Craft Bond Memory Book Glue Pen 1.0 oz $1.77 at classroomdirect.com .. Has a dual tip and is a wet glue and not as great initial stick.  Glues well and didn’t warp but is shiny when dry.

Zig 2 way Glue Pen $2.39 Winkofstella.com 2 mm tip $2.39 wet bond is permanent.  dry bond is temporary.  Very sticky initially and ripped the paper.  Shiny when dry, didn’t glue well but no warping.  Glue felt like a temporary glue instead of a permanent glue.

Big Lots Glue Stick 12 pack $2 at back to school .317 oz.  Sticks well initially.  Warps, didn’t glue well.

Elmer’s Washable School Glue Stick jumbo 1.4 oz 3 for $7.50 dealmtn.com with free shipping or the smaller one .24 oz 2 for 99 cents at Target.com

Best Glue Sticks
Elmer’s Washable School Glue Stick–no warping, invisible glue and glues well.  The gel was almost as good, but left a small amount of shine once dry.  Check the prices on the jumbo vs the regular size glue sticks as I found the jumbo to be less expensive than the normal size sticks.

Glue Pen–Neither of them were exceptional.

I made the clothespin wreath with an Americana stamped theme on it for a girlfriend for Christmas.  She has one room in her home that is covered in red, white and blue, with a country feel.  She has just about every surface covered with knick knacks so I thought something to hang on her door would be nice.  This wreath could also act as a Christmas card holder, although I don’t see her using it as such.  The peg stamps worked perfectly on the wreath and it took sixty-two clothespins to cover a 12″ wreath form.  I couldn’t believe how fast the project was and really recommend it for anyone who has a friend or family member who likes the country look.  I could have made the wreath look more Christmasy,  just by stamping it with holly or snowmen, but thought she’d like this design better.

I was surprised at how fast you can stamp sixty-two clothespins.  I didn’t think it would take forever, but definitely never thought I could put the entire wreath together and stamp the clothespins in under thirty minutes.  The only problem I’m having is trying to find a bow that works with the look of the wreath (Americana), but still makes a nice bow.  I started with red burlap ribbon that was frayed.  It was impossible to tie so that was out.  Then I moved onto a navy ribbon with a rubbery white line running through the center.  It tied into a nice bow, but the white rubbery material rubbed off when I used the bow jig, so it’s not working either.  I tied a bow with some red grosgrain ribbon with white stitching and it looks odd. I’m not really sure what ribbon will work well for this if I want to maintain the Americana feel   So much angst over something so small.  Unfortunately, the bow is the most important component of a wreath so I have to get it right.  Geez, so much hassle over a bow!  I’ll keep thinking about it and make a few hundred more bows until I get it right.  Slight exaggeration, it might only take twenty more.

I had some free crafty time while Rich was at the gym, so I decided to makeover a small wreath.  It was a little bit larger than a normal Christmas ornament and it is a grape vine style wreath form.  It had a few pieces of pine and a miniature pinecone on it and just needed more bling.  (Of course it did!)  I thought it would take me five or ten minutes, but in the end, took more like an hour.  Once I start working on something like this, I just can’t stop.  So, in the end, it came out cute and is video worthy.  I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I definitely have a line I won’t cross when it comes to making videos.  My line isn’t really well defined, but it goes something like this.  If I make something and I think a six year old can make it better, then the video gets deleted.  This was almost the case with the wreath ornament that Rich is putting up tonight.  There was a long stretch of time when I really thought it should go in the trash.  Sometimes I persevere, and sometimes I just trash it.  I’m really glad I pushed through with that ornament, as I’m really happy with the results.  I think the same is true for this ornament.  I’ll probably put this on a present and make it something that will look good on the present and then will act as a decoration after the gift is opened.

I’ve been thinking about what kind of crafty things I’ll be able to do on vacation.  I haven’t gone a week without crafting since my hip surgery (almost a year ago.)  I don’t know if I’ll go through withdrawals, but there’s definitely a distinct possibility that I will.  I wish I could watercolor because there are so many things that I could draw there.  The water is crystal blue and that alone is worth learning to watercolor.  My friend Elishia is taking a watercolor class and I’d love to have access to a watercolor 101 class, but don’t have any classes around me.  I’ve thought about taking classes on Craftsy, but don’t know if they can teach me at the level I’m at.  Let’s say watercolors for a six year old, and maybe that’s even more advanced than I can handle.  I watch Lindsay watercolor and she loses me as soon as she starts mixing colors.  She does it so fast and I have no idea what colors are what and then I’m done.  I need someone to do the color wheel and walk me through mixing step by step so I have a clue about the whole process.  I realize I can mix colors and make my own color wheel, but don’t really feel confident that I’ll be doing it the right.  If any of you know a YouTuber that does beginner watercolors  for “dummies”,  (remember those books?), I would love it.  Drop me a note with their name and I’ll be forever in your debt.

 

 

I talked Rich into putting up a video every day this week to hopefully catch up with me.  I’ve been making so many videos that he may never get caught up.  Today I took a small artificial Christmas tree and redecorated it for the Christmas family.  Tomorrow we’re dropping off the used items they wanted, like a high chair and crib, and I wanted to make sure I gave him a small Christmas tree as well.  I think it’s really important when you have a baby to have a Christmas tree and I’m not sure if he would have had one otherwise.  The tree is really attractive, now that it’s been refurbished.  It needed everything new, so I used some small Dollar Tree glittery balls in different colors as well as some holly and holly boughs that I pushed into the tree anywhere there was a gap.  I put a large snowflake on top for the tree topper and gave it a red and gold skirt.  All in all, it’s a tree I think anyone would be thrilled to get.

I also made the framed art I’ve been talking about.  I couldn’t believe how cute they turned out.  I’m really happy I made them and am not sure what I want to do with them.  Originally, I was going to give them to a couple of my girlfriends, but the set of five really looks great together and maybe all five need to go to one person.  I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I am really happy with the results.  So far my Christmas projects have all been pretty great and I still have more to go.  My next project will be to make Christmas collars for the dogs.  I’m going to take felt and make flowers in different shades of reds and  I hope they will be as cute as I envision them.  I’ll make sure to videotape the dogs wearing them as I’m pretty sure as soon as they have them on, Honey will try to ruin at least Bellas’ flowers.  Honey doesn’t like Bella to have anything nice, so when Bella goes to the groomer and gets a bandana, as soon as she comes home, Honey tears it off of her.  Honey’s a little bit of a diva.  Maybe once she realizes she’s wearing the same collar, she’ll leave the other dogs alone.  I doubt it.

The last glue comparison video went live today.  The funny part is, I completely forgot I even made the video as it’s been on Rich’s desk for a couple of weeks.  I’m sure that there are a ton of other products I could compare, but currently, I’m out of ideas.  I wonder how many other videos I’ve made that I’ve forgotten about.

I did make a small run to the Dollar Tree to finish buying things I’m going to convert into Christmas gifts.  I saw a video by Cheapcraftygirl where she did a walk through of her Christmas decorations and she had used photo frames and made them into decorations.  I thought it was a great idea and easy to make.  I think my girlfriends will really like them and plan on giving each of them one (or three.)   I also bought the last things I needed for the planner I’m going to cover.  I think it will be a great project and need to get started on it.  I’m also doing a paper bag album with cute Christmas bags I bought at the Dollar Tree and will show them in the haul video as well.  I’m really surprised at how many people watched the last Dollar Tree haul and the follow up present video.  I really am having a great time making inexpensive gifts that are easy and have mass appeal and I never really know what kinds of videos will resound with people.  These ones definitely did.

I probably haven’t mentioned this yet on the blog, but next week we’re going on vacation.  It’s Rich’s birthday and we’re going to an island in the Caribbean called St. Maarten.  We’ve been there several times and really love it there.  Half of the island is French, so the food is really great, especially the desserts, and I always gain weight from the pastries.  The other side of the island is owned by the Dutch, and they have a lot of great jewelry stores and shopping.  We used to jewelry shop, but haven’t done so in a few years.  It’s definitely fun to look though.  I do plan on uploading videos during the week, because I have so many already finished and a lot I want to do before Christmas.  I’ve tried to get Rich to upload one a day for the next week, but we’ll wait and see.  There’s a lot to editing my videos because I make a lot of mistakes and sometimes the videos are really long (like the wet glue video.)  I have to give Rich credit, though, because I would have thrown in the towel if I was editing my own videos because of the problems I create.  I  watched Lindsay’s new video on making Christmas bulb wreaths and I had to laugh, because she sounded exactly like I felt when I was making that wreath ornament the other day.  I was so frustrated with the stupid glue gun and just wanted to throw in the towel on the project.  Her video is definitely worth watching, because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen another crafter practically lose their minds over a project.  It make me feel like we bonded somehow.  Maybe I’m not crazy after all.  (Or maybe I am.)

I finished the wreath ornament today.  I scrapped most of the original plan and used something I saw Lindsay do.  She made a pine wreath out of pine branches from trees in her yard.  I started thinking about why I hated the ornament and it was because it was so one dimensional.  It occurred to me that I have the perfect punches to make paper look like pine branches as well as one that looks like leaves.  I thought if I put the leaf die cuts (punches, die cut, whatever), under the pine branches, it would fill the empty spaces.  Then I make clusters of leaves and pine branches and glued them together.  Once they were dry, I hot glued them to the wreath form.  I added some red half pearls and a bow and it looks adorable.  It’s definitely something to be proud of and the video has a lot of editing to be done, but should look good as well.

You never know (at least I don’t) if a project is going to turn out well or not.  I’m never sure if the vision in my head will equate to something that will actually looks nice.  I was seriously contemplating tossing the ornament into the trash the other day, but I persevered and am really glad I did.   I think most of my frustration stemmed from the glue gun and not the actual wreath ornament.  Once I gave up on the new glue gun, things started to go much better.

I’m going to do another haul video as soon as some of my Black Friday purchases roll in.  I bought so much stuff.  I know I didn’t need anything, but when I watch Jennifer McGuire talk about her favorite tools or her favorite inks or stamps, I’m inspired and need them.  I seriously need them.  I realize that I definitely don’t need them, but I really want them, so I ordered them and will do a haul once they come in.  I’m doing another haul from the Dollar Tree tomorrow (well I’ll film it, but won’t know when the video will go live.)  I bought some great frames to use as Christmas gifts and decorations and I think they will look really nice with what I have planned for them. I’m looking forward to making the video.

Did you ever have one of those crafty times where everything seems to go wrong?  I was working on a very small Styrofoam wreath form and trying to turn it into an ornament of a wreath (oddly enough!)   It should have been a simple project. I covered the wreath with ribbon and then I put ornaments on it and surrounded the wreath with a really beautiful ornate red ribbon.  I was using a new glue gun that people had recommended to me from Aleene’s.  It has a palm feed and it was supposed to make my life so much simpler.  Instead, I couldn’t pull the trigger with my “palm” or one hand, I had to hold it in one and pull the trigger with the other.  My cheap little glue gun never gave me any problems and this is a $30 glue gun.  I was so frustrated that I’m pretty sure I’ll be scrapping the video because I sound exactly like I felt, and by the end, almost chucked the glue gun into my trash can.

I’m normally pretty mellow when it comes to a crafting fail, but this one was epic.  I swear it looks like a five year old made this ornament.  The Styrofoam has some kind of treatment on the outside of it so it’s almost impossible to push pins into.  That should have been my first indicator that this was going badly.  I thought that by putting some charms and pearl topped needles into the Styrofoam, that it would take on the look of an actual wreath.  Instead, it just went downhill from there.  I added some green baubles from an ugly pin.  I used the finest tip on the glue gun, and it put out huge dollops of glue instead of a thin stream.  I was hoping to hide the glue, but instead, had to pull it off and retry and then retry then retry.  In the end, I glued the green baubles onto that wreath at least three times each and none of them look good (in my opinion.)  Rich tried to make me feel better by saying it looked good, but sometimes I think he says things just to calm me down.  By that point I was looking at the trash can and contemplating both the project and the glue gun and their worth to me.

Can you return a glue gun once you’ve used it?  I’m so disgusted that I bought it and now I have no idea what to do with it.  Stupid glue gun!  I promised I would do a video product recommendation on the glue gun.  I’m not sure what else I can say other than, it was hard to use and I hated it.  I’ll still do the product video as I don’t want others to have the same issues I faced.  I’m pretty sure you’ll never see the wreath video, but if you do, rest assured, it won’t look like it does right now and I’ll be pulling out my trusty $3 glue gun.  It’s not pretty, but it works like a charm!

I began making this project last year and thought I could make a wreath out of this idea.  Unfortunately, it never occurred to me how long it would take and how many of the punched flowers I would need.  The wreath is still sitting where I left it, with about ten flowers in it and no hope for completion.
You’ll need about 100 straight pins with a decorated head.  I chose a box with red pearl tips.  I used a 3″ Styrofoam ball and almost 100 punched flowers out of cardstock.  I used two plain straight pins to adhere a 6″ piece of ribbon the I tied a loop into and then pinned into the ball as the hanger for the ornament.  I started on the line that marks the equator of the ball and began by using a foam mat and pushing the pin into the flower and then pushing the pin into the ball.  I didn’t push the flower all the way onto the pin until it was in the ball and that was a big time saver.  I put the flowers close enough together that the petals overlapped each other a little bit.
It’s easier to work around the ball, but I chose to do small portions at a time and ran into some problems with having to move existing flowers.  If you work around the ball in rows, you shouldn’t have any problems.  If you do, just move a couple flowers until they cover the ball.

I’m starting to get confused about what I’ve said on the blog and things I’ve been thinking about talking about.  I’m sorry if some of the things I say are repetitive.  It’s not my intention to repeat myself, but I think my brain gets in a loop and can’t move on sometimes.  Does that ever happen to you?

My friend Elishia has started a YouTube channel called WanderingDreamer555.  I’m not sure of the significance of her YouTube name, but she’s made a few videos and is doing a great job for just trying her hand at it.  She did a craft room tour and I seriously wanted to cry at the amount of organization she’s done.  I can’t tell you how often I can’t locate something and that’s when my room is clean.  It was an amazing tour and you should definitely check it out.

I’ve got a bunch of ideas for some inexpensive gifts for the holidays.  I’ve said repeatedly that I’m trying to find ways for people to save this Christmas, so these crafty ideas are in keeping with my master plan.  I’ve been watching videos that other people have put online using a nice frame and then putting designer Christmas paper in the frame and then decorating that.  I’ve got some great ideas to correspond with this and can’t wait to try them out.  I need one small trip to the Dollar Tree and I’ll be ready to put that video up.

I’m also making a wreath using a wreath frame and clothespins that should cost the maker less than $6 to make.  It’s cute and will looks great as is, or using it as a Christmas card holder.  I’m pretty sure that I’ve gone into detail about this in an earlier blog.  (I think my mind just went into that loop I was talking about.)

 

I’ve been doing absolutely no crafting the last couple of days as it’s been a serious whirlwind of shopping for the family that Rich and I adopt for Christmas.  I try to make sure that most of our shopping is done before the end of Cyber Monday as I like to do a lot of my shopping online.  I’m not big on crowds and hate the lines that this time of year brings to stores.  I’ve been thinking of a lot of different crafts I’m going to pursue, but just haven’t been able to get into the craft room to accomplish anything.  I’m going to make collars for the dogs for Christmas and think my idea would work for sliding onto headbands for little girls as well.  I think I’m going to take a long piece of felt and wrap it around a dog collar and then hot glue it so it is basically a circle.  After I’ve done that, I’m going to make felt flowers and leaves for the collar.  I think it will be really cute and as I said, would work on a hair band as well.  I might try to make flowers and attach them to small barrettes.  Anyway, that’s one of my ideas.

I’ve got to get serious about making some videos as I feel like Rich might eventually catch up with me.  He’s putting up a video tomorrow and it’s a short one.  I have several small videos that need to go live, so he’s probably going to have a chance to bridge the gap.  Darn it, I better get into the craft room.