The Story of Learning to Express Myself

A couple of weeks ago X-Press It Australia advertised on their Facebook page they were looking for a few people to test-drive their new products. Like any curious crafter I immediately applied and was lucky enough to be chosen!

X-Press It are best known for their adhesives and what I received was their new Wide and Extra-Fine Glue Markers (along with the original too). To be honest I've never really bothered with glue-pens before. I'm preferentially a tape-runner type of girl. I guess I like speed and no fuss. I'm also too impatient to wait for drying time, and I want my product to stay exactly where I place it. But turns out these Glue Markers are actually fabulous!! Truly!

In order to do a true product review I figured I needed to something to show off the 3 different widths of glue. I first started off testing them on a scrap piece of paper. I ruled some lines and then sprinkled them with glitter so I could actually see it. Mainly because the Extra Fine pen is so fine that I was convinced it wasn't working because I couldn't see it! But after sprinkling the glitter it stuck perfectly and my fears were relieved. You can see my test piece in the photo above.

That's when the genius of the moment struck me and I thought... why do anything more fancy than that? Ruled lines of glitter, fresh white cardstock and a handful of Basic Grey Hey Girl embellishments. My cards are simple, but (I think) still striking. And they show off the Glue Markers perfectly.

I made sure I used extra-fine glitter so it would stick even to the Extra-Fine Glue Marker, but still being convinced it would eventually fall off I sprayed the card with a gloss varnish to finish and seal it all in.

What I also learned while doing these cards was how fabulous the Glue Markers are going to be for my 'normal' scrapping. See at the bottom of my cards I've got that strip of coloured paper, and then the really thin Doodlebug Designs border strip? Normally to stick that on with my tape runner I would try and apply just a little bit because it would run over the sides and I would then have to try and tidy up the overlapping glue before sticking it down. That's why I'm always sewing things down with my machine. Yep, seriously.. that's how I work!

But talk about being super-easy to just run my Glue Marker along the entire length of the back of it without worrying about overflow and then knowing it was going to stick precisely in place. And as far as my other prejudices are concerned.... this stuff dries really quickly, and really strong too. In fact, now I have to be more careful with my scrapping because once it's down it's going to stay there!

In summary...
I'm really glad to have been given this opportunity by X-Press It to try out their Glue Markers because it's really opened my eyes to a new method of adhesion, and I'm sure these are now going to become a staple in my stash. You can see my review they posted on their blog here.

Bloggin' all around the World

Well not quite, but I have got a lot of posts that have gone up this past week that aren't actually here on my own blog! (And speaking of my blog, have you noticed the clean new look? It's still in need of a bit of tweaking, but what do you think?)

Let me show you some sneaks, and then you can check out the full versions for yourself...

#1

First up, I'm sharing another page made with the gorgeous Maggie Holmes Flea Market collection over on the Paper Stories blog. This is surely one of my favourite lines ever. The colours are exactly me, but that doesn't mean that I couldn't augment it a little with a bit of mixed media.

In fact, I've even posted another video on my YouTube channel that shares the process of this layout coming together. But for all the details and explanation head on over to the Paper Stories blog.

#2

Today I'm super-excited to say I'm Guest Blogging over on the Scrapbook Creations Magazine blog!! Asked to share something that's trendy or inspiring me right now I chose to go with my recent love of scrapping with neutrals. I put this layout together with the September JBS Papercrafting kit. The kit as a whole was actually really bright and colourful, but with some careful choices I turned it into this tone-on-tone page.

I share my tips and tricks for doing this though, as I think if you're not careful with scrapping with neutrals it might turn out a little.... well.. boring!

Scrapbook Creations have got a Blog Hop going on right now (which I'm a part of) where you've got a chance to win a 1 year subscription among other things. Check it out here.

#3

I was recently sent the newest products from X-Press It in order to review them. X-Press It are known best for their high-quality adhesives and they've just released Wide and Extra-Fine Glue Markers along with the standard size. I have to admit... I really loved them!

Putting them to the test I whipped out this set of relatively simple cards with some Basic Grey goodies. The feature piece of each card is the series of glitter stripes running along it's length. It shows you the difference in width of the 3 Glue Markers at a glance.

X-Press It have also got a Blog Hop going on right now where you could win these products for yourself! Check it out here. 

#4

And lastly... over at Jenni Bowlin Studios we're celebrating all things Autumn and Halloween. Slightly tricky I admit, given I definitely don't do Halloween and it's currently Spring here in Australia! But it's not like I don't have a thousand photos from 6 months ago sitting on my desk waiting to be scrapped, so turns out it wasn't that hard after all ;-)

It definitely helps that the October Papercrafting Kit was filled with all things Autumnal too, which I loved. But I have to admit I've got my eye on the November kits and can't wait for them to arrive on my doorstep!

And one last thing..
I've got my own Evalicious Giveaway going on right now, and it's open for anyone to enter. Good luck :-)