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.