Why Aleene's Tacky Glue is the best adhesive for crepe paper flowers

Last month I delved into scissors, what to look for, and what I use. Beside my Kai Scissors, I LOVE Aleene’s Tacky Glue, and that’s what we’re exploring today. 

I love that Aleene’s Tacky Glue comes in so many amazing sizes and forms. You have the amazing glue pen, the very manageably sized 2 oz for better control, 3 oz, 5 oz, and even bigger amounts up from there, which are useful when you are doing large projects. I like using the glue pen to get really fine lines when I need to be precise. If I happen to be glueing lots of pieces at a time, I like to pour some of the bigger bottles into a small bowl and use a stick or a thick wire to dab a bit at a time on the ends of petals. Using this method, it makes the glue even more tacky and the drying time is shortened quite a bit so that you can work faster.

Here are some tips for when you are using Aleene’s Tacky Glue in your paper flower projects.

Close It Up

When not in use, keep your glue tip closed. This might seem rather obvious, but it can be very easy to forget when in the middle of a project. If you take care to keep it closed, your bottle will last a very long time. 

A fantastic tip was given by Claudia Woodward of the Facebook Paper Talk Community, she said, "To get it (the tip of the glue bottle) off run under hot water. To help prevent it from happening, dip the tip of your glue bottle in a little jar of Vaseline before putting the lid on.

Keep It from Slipping

Let the applied glue sit for a few minutes before pressing papers together, or use the method I described above and let the glue sit out a little bit while you work. This will let it get tackier and less slippery so that your papers will stay in place.

Give It Time to Dry

When making paper flowers, I tend to glue the petals together fairly quickly. One way to quicken the drying time is to put a quarter-size amount of glue in a small bowl to let it slowly air dry. I use an 8 gauge wire to apply my glue in tricky spots or just dip the petal ends in the glue, this will quicken the drying process.  Add more glue as you continue on. One tip is to add glue to the left side of the bowl and use the right side as the glue on that side will be tackier than the “freshly” poured glue. Take care to let parts finish drying completely if they’ll be pushed around or handled a lot. If you use more glue, it’ll need longer to dry. 

Fix a Clogged Tip

If the tip of your glue bottle is clogged, you can take off the top and soak it in warm water. Then use something sharp and narrow to poke the clog out of the way. Another tip is like I save my various cut tips tops from the very narrow tip for detail work to wider tips where I need a larger amount of glue for bigger flower projects. It’s easy to change up the tips. I usually write the size of my tip on the side of the cap to keep it organized.

Add Color

Aleene’s Tacky Glue will stay clear after it dries, but for a fun experiment, you can try adding acrylic paint to color your glue and see how it changes the final look of your project. From my experiments, it gives the color a more opaque appearance.