Stuck on Adhesives!

A good adhesive is like a good stage crew—when it’s working well, you hardly notice it at all. But choosing a good adhesive can be difficult—even more difficult than finding a competent stage crew. But what makes one adhesive different from another?

Adhesives have been around for over 6,000 years.  Fortunately, they have come a long way in the last 100 years. Today, adhesives are a multi-billion dollar industry with over 750 adhesive companies competing for your business—no wonder it is a confusing process to select a good adhesive! We are in the business of preserving memories, so of course we want our adhesive bonds to last as long as possible. But we want more than that! We want adhesives that are acid free, that will do their job without being seen, and that won’t cost us an arm and a leg! 

Luckily, Close To My Heart has adhesives that will meet all of these criteria. Let’s take a look at seven of the adhesives offered by Close To My Heart, keeping in mind that all are acid free, affordable, and most dry clear. 

Liquid Glass

Strengths: Extremely strong, permanent, clear, inexpensive, versatile—can be used as a glue, a glaze, or an accent, and it will stick to almost anything.  It can also be used to repair household items! 

Considerations: Can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 48 hours to dry, depending on how much is used. The unique gloss effect can alter appearance of ink colors. Add tiny dots of Liquid Glass on a stamped leaf image to look like dew. Completely cover a black bat stamped image to look glossy & shiny. Great for attaching buttons, our chipboard Dimensional Elements…anything bulky or heavy to cards & layouts.

Tips: - Liquid Glass is often thought of as an “embellishment” because it makes things glossy & pretty. You don’t want to sew across Liquid Glass to take that into consideration when you are applying it to your projects.  When you are finished with your project, hold the bottle upright and tap it firmly on the table to clear out the tip and then gently squeeze the excess air from the tip so it does not clog.  A sewing pin is a handy tool to unclog the tip if necessary. Store your bottle upright.  

Bonding Memories® Glue

Strengths: Permanent or repositionable, easy to hold, inexpensive, lasts for a long time, comes out blue & dries clear! Dries quickly. Best for “paper to paper” applications. For example, when positioning your patterned papers on your base layout cardstock use Bonding Memories. Your paper can easily be “scooted” into place or lifted if you need to reposition. You might have a photo mat that you want to glue down on a page (that’s paper to paper). Bonding Memories is the glue. I love how the big nib top still can get into little places where glue needs to be added. 

Considerations: Use only a small amount and apply in “dots” not long lines.

Excess glue may cause papers to bubble.

Tips: To use glue the first time, remove cellophane. Place tip down on scratch paper. Gently pump tip depressing it lightly. Keep doing this and you’ll see the tip gradually turn blue. Store upright with clear cover snapped on tight.

Bonding Memories® Glue Pen

Strengths: Permanent or repositionable, easy to hold, inexpensive, lasts for a long time, dries quickly, easy to use in small areas.

Considerations: Works best in small amounts in small spaces.

Tips: Use the glue pen to secure corners of paper.

** see info above on Bonding Memories Glue. The Glue Pen is simply a scaled down version of the Bonding Memories Glue with a smaller chisel tip & smaller amount of glue.

3-D Foam Tape

Strengths: Strong hold, adds dimension to layouts & cards. Two sizes included in package- 3/8” & ¼” . Each roll is 75” long.  3-D foam tape can also be stacked to get the desired height. 

Considerations: Use scissor to cut exact size of tape that you need. 

Tips: When adding My Stickease to a project “de-stick” the back of the image with baby powder. Then add 3-D Foam tape and attach.

Memory Book Glue Dots®

Strengths: Strong hold, thin, available in two different sizes, sticks to almost everything.

Considerations: Requires individual application. Whatever you want to add a Glue Dot to simply touch the item to the Glue Dot & pull away. Glue Dot will attach itself. So easy!

Tips: These work especially well with unique embellishments like metal accents or ribbon.  Glue Dots can be stacked for extra dimension or rolled up like a burrito for smaller accents. 

Tombow® Mono® Adhesive

Strengths: Quick and easy to apply, no drying time, permanent, easy to refill.  Tombow can be used on any material even glossy photos.

Considerations: Press firmly to avoid breaks in adhesive strip and roll along your project.  

Tips: Tombow is my “go to adhesive.” You don’t want to sew across your Tombow adhesive so you may want to place your adhesive about 1/4 an inch from the edge of your paper to allow space for your sewing needle.  

Rub & Remove Eraser

While this is not actually an adhesive, the Rub & Remove Eraser is an excellent tool for keeping your adhesive under control.  Just rub it across the extra adhesive and it will lift the adhesive from your project.  The Rub & Remove Eraser is also good to remove stray rub-ons! 

Special thanks to Sue Laufer for contributing to the content of this article.