I am one of those card makers that loves to cut out tiny stamped image, I like to paper piece and also use die cuts with lots of small bits and pieces. But one of my biggest problems was what type of adhesive to use on all those small pieces of paper. Glue sticks and glue pens are messy, the glue oozes out and I always end up getting glue all over my fingers and my table and my project 🙂
One tool I’ve found that helps solve this problem is one that I’ve used for many years and it’s the X style Sticker Maker from Xyron, it’s a cute little machine that adds adhesive to the back of the tiniest pieces of paper with no mess, it turns it into it’s own sticker! This style can add adhesive to anything that is 1 1/2″ wide and as long as you want and now I just tried out a larger Sticker Maker from Xyron that will make stickers that are 3″ wide and as long as you want too. You can feed stamped images, strips of paper, die cut shapes and even ribbon into to the sticker maker for no mess adhesive and it’s quick and easy to use and each style is refillable.
I also tried out the Mega Runner from Xyron which is a hand held adhesive runner that lays down a 1/2″ wide strip of tiny acid free dots of permanent adhesive, it’s perfect for layering larger pieces of pattern papers and cardstock. It’s really comfortable to hold and is a nice size, I’ve tried larger runners that can be a bit heavy and bulky. I like that it has a cap to cover the end of the adhesive and I really loved that it was easy to use and hold as a left hander. The Mega Runner is also refillable in your choice of size 1/2″ or 1/4″ wide.
For my first project (shown above) I made an owl and pussy cat themed card using both sizes of sticker makers and the adhesive runner. On a brown cardstock I adhered pattern paper using the Mega Runner and using the larger Sticker Maker I adhered all the little die cut pieces of the sailboat. The cat and fish stamps were cut out and adhered using the small X Sticker Maker as well as all the tiny cut paper pieces for the owl.
Next I made a cut card using a stamped cloud background, adhered with the Mega Runner to my cardstock base and a cute RV mobile Home die cut that I adhered using the larger Sticker Maker. I used black grosgrain ribbon for the “road” at the bottom and the Mega Runner did a great job adhering the ribbon to the card. I always have trouble with liquid glue and ribbon but the runner works perfectly with ribbon.
Here’s a couple of photos of the tools in action. Sticker, when you lift the clear layer adhesive is only tuck to the bottom of your paper:
and the tape runner on ribbon:
I hope you enjoyed my projects made using adhesive from Xyron, be sure to visit their website for more information on their products and keep up with the latest news on their Facebook page too.
-Heather
