This year's holiday card OR a tale of two adhesives

What with one thing and another, this year's holiday card didn't happen until just last week. Like last year, its a multi media collage but this year not quite so abstract. A simplified Christmas tree is the subject I chose--its so iconic I can minimize the details a lot while still depicting something recognizable. As with all collages, using the appropriate adhesive is the key. I did have some glue stick issues that necessitated a quick run to the craft store, but luckily they had what I needed. Damn that "repositionable" glue stick--don't ever buy that crap! "Repositionable" actually means that its not very sticky. Whats the point of that??? (don't buy that purple stuff either. its supposed to dry clear, but doesn't always). My hands down favorite is Scotch brand craft stick in the 1.41 oz. size. Its the best for general crafting and is perfect for dealing with fabrics. When in doubt, get the big size--the small, chapstick size tubes last for about, oh lets see now, 10 minutes of crafting. Uh-huh, very helpful. NOT.





Anyway, here's Step 1: A little time carefully measuring and cutting trapezoids and triangles and --voila! My simple, yet elegant tree. I chose three fabrics that all had some metallic gold accents. Because Christmas is all about glittery, shiny stuff, isn't it? Glue stick on the fabric did the trick here.






Step 2: More glittery stuff. A couple of swooshes of Angelina fibers add some textural and detail interest. A swipe of glue stick on the tree laid a snail trail for the angelina fibers to stick to.








Step 3: One stylized ornament made out of a coil of colored wire completes the design. I sign in pencil and I'm done. Woo-hoo! Glue stick doesn't work for wire at all so I switched to a more goopy adhesive: Uhu glue.Search Amazon.com for uhu glueSearch Amazon.com for uhu glue This glue does not soak into the fabric and disappear like water-based Elmer's and is, well, nice and goopy. Thus, the pea-sized blob of Uhu sits on top of the fabric and then encompasses the wire coil and bonds the two together as it dries.

I ended up making 80 cards. I have about half of them written and sent out and (sigh) a bunch more to go. But they're HOLIDAY cards, and the holidays last until January 6; the Feast of Three Kings (Epiphany), right???

Well, that's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking (ahem) to it.