Tips and Tools

Oppps, lol, I meant to publish this tomorrow! I guess you get 2 long posts today {blush}

***Yesterday I mentioned that I tried the SU equivalent of the Stickles. As you can see below, the SU is pretty much the same color as the Star Dust Stickles.

I was a bit disappointed when the SU one arrived since I already have 4 bottles of the Stickles! Why??? I am not really sure since one bottle lasts a really long time, lol

To my suprise though, the SU one dries much faster!!! I added quite a bit of this glitter glue and it dried completely in less than an hour, WOW! This was WONDERFUL since I am a very impatient person and tend to smear the Stickles due to my refusal to wait long enough.

***Talking about glue, do you add a blob of glue to a paper and use a toothpick to adhere small items like pearls and gems? Well, here is the perfect solution.

 I LOVE these small glue bottles. They come in 3 different sizes with the metal tips having slightly larger hole in each size. You can fill with your favorite glue and finally enjoy adding those small pretty embellies to your project. These tips really make a tiny glue dot, perfect for non-adhesive pearls and gems. This is what I used for my ornament yesterday as well as adhering the thin cord.

You can find these from  The Golden Egg Of Idaho (they will only charge actual shipping and are super fast) or the Eggery Place. You can find some less expensive, but I would not recommend purchasing the tips seperate from the bottles or kits offered elswhere. These ones come with a pin that fits inside each metal tip. This is important because, not only do they fit perfectly...but, also are stainless steal. Stainless steal will not rust as the nickle plated pins do. I had the darndest time finding stainless steal pins and none that were small enough for these tips. Before adding the metal tip on the ones from The Golden Egg, make sure to cut the plastic tip down to the ring, leaving the ring in tact. The Eggery Place bottles should be cut much less. the tips click on the plastic bottles diffently.

***These are my all time favorite tweezers. I love the pointy tips each have. The smaller ones are just fabulous for thing like turning pearls and gems when they flip over. Being smaller, there is more control when using them. These can also be purchase from the Eggery Place.

***I have tried so many of those sticky type tools made specifically for picking up pearls. gems and beads. I did not like any of them. None seemed to work well for me, not even the wet spagetti trick. Then I found these at Pizzaz Aplenty.

They are called Gel Pickers and they are perfect. They are only .30 each! You can also purchase a package of the embellie gellie to make your own. I like buying the individual ones when I place an order since they last quite a while before dust gets on it causing the gel to not stick.

***Lastly, I have a couple of trick that I have learned and want to share with you.

To prevent cord from fraying you can give it a light coat of mod podge. Simply add a little to 2 of your finger tips and run the cord between them. Let it dry for a few minutes and you will not be able to tell. Any shine/glimmer from the cord will show through perfectly.

For my ornament yesterday, I only had white inridecent cord. I really wanted to use this kind for the egg, so I decided to try and color it with my copics (even after adding the mod podge) I ended up with colors that matched perfectly with the pearls and gems.

***Another thing I use mod podge for is to coat the paper around small holes. For the ornament yesterday, I gave 2 thin coats to the top and the cord is not going to rip the paper without a really hard pull.

WOW, what a long post, lol. I hope you were able to learn something new.

{{{HUGS}}} Sandy O