It's All About the Glue, I Mean the Adhesives...

When I first started scrapbooking, I had a really nice gluestick. It seemed like it would be all I needed. Sure, my fingers got a little sticky, but I was just gluing pictures and background paper. Very simple. How could I have been so naive and so wrong?Then I was faced with the challenge of a button and some ribbon. The gluestick, no matter how awesome, just couldn't do the job. That's when I looked around the workroom of the scrapbook store, and I realized there was an entire adhesive mileu that was just beginning to touch my awareness. First was the mini glue dot-so much power packed into such a a tiny little flat circle. The roll seems never ending so I could feel free to use as many as I want. There's no such thing as too many mini glue dots. From there I borrowed a few pop dots from someone. These little pre-cut pieces of double stick foam raised the item on the page to create layers and dimension. What about those little tiny die cut letters? I spent 20 minutes individually cutting out the 1-inch letters for a title; now I had to glue them on the page. Use the glue pen, of course-precision glue, but lots of sticky fingers. (It would be two more years before I entered the, "Oh, duh! A Xyron!" reality.) With those basics in my tool box, I decided to jump the canyon and got my first tape runner. This was so cool! The speed. The control. The clean fingers. The wipe off removal of excess. It just couldn't get any better than this. What!? And it's refillable? Woohoo! Until I actually had to refill it. What a speed bump that was. A few months later and I was still adhesive-challenged at refill time. I could go on and on about my trials and tribulations, but suffice it to say that I continued to carry the glue stick for the times when my frustration hit it's peak, and I tossed the entire runner, refill, box, and the little square of folded directions with a diagram violently into the bottom of case with a string of very, very bad words. Took me a long time, but now I can run through the refill process and be back to the layout in less than a minute. I do admit that I do have a gummed up permanent tape runner tucked in my tool box, but my removeable is almost two years old and still running strong. Four years later and along with my tape runners, mini glue dots (still awesome!), pop dots, and glue pen, may horde includes the much needed vellum dots, big glue dots, big Zots, Zips strips, liquid glue, and the 1/8 of inch double-sided wonder tape (can't face ribbon without it). And I don't want to forget a quick shout out to the the amazing Xyron. Without doubt or hesitation, I need them all.