Confessions of an Adhesive Junkie

I have had a love/hate relationship with adhesive for most of my time in the scrapbooking hobby. It's such an important element of the hobby (really, where would we be without it?) but finding the right one can be tricky.

Probably over the course of my scrapbooking hobby I have tried at least twenty different types of adhesive and adhesive dispensers, and I have never found one that worked all the time without problems, or didn't cost an arm and a leg, or wasn't a pain to refill, or worked until another company bought them out and changed the formula, etc., etc.

All this adhesive drama ended the day the Scotch ATG 700 by 3M came into my life:


If you already own an ATG, then you know what I'm talking about. Because it is not possible to own one of these babies and not enshrine it in your heart and in your scrapbook room.

If you don't already own an ATG, then you need to get one. Now.

For those of you that are still here reading this blog and not speeding off to ScrapbooksPlus to pick one up, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that the gun is huge, that it must be heavy and bulky, that it's expensive, and, quite frankly, ugly.

Not so, my friends, not so.

The gun is wonderful to use. It is bigger than the adhesive dispenser you are probably using right now, but it is light as a feather and fits comfortably in your hand. I find that I have less aches and pains in my shoulder and wrist after using this guy for hours than I did when I was using Hermas or Tombows or other forms of adhesive.

It's super simple to reload, and if you're the sort of person who forgets how to load your adhesive (like me) then you're in luck, because the directions are actually etched into the gun itself! And the adhesive is the most economical on the market, hands down. So even though the gun costs more than other adhesive dispensers on the market, it more than pays for itself with what you save on adhesive.

There is one area where I'm not going to argue with you, however, and that is aesthetics. The ATG is pretty darn ugly. It's a framer's tool. It's bright yellow so that it doesn't get lost on a counter with a bunch of other supplies. I'll bet it's industrial yellow color is just great for framing professionals. However, we scrapbookers want everything to be beautiful, not just functional.

That is why, once you get your ATG and fall in love with it, you must alter it.

Here are a couple pictures of my altered ATG:



I just bought my mom an ATG for Mother's Day and I'm going to be altering it for her before I wrap it up and give it to her. While I'm doing that I'm going to take you through the altering process step-by-step. If you haven't purchased an ATG yet, you still have time. I will post the first part of the instructions on Wednesday and the second part of the instructions on Friday.