Focus on UHU Glues : UHU Scrapbooker's Pens

My nearly three year old daughter and I have been trying out some different UHU glues this weekend. The below are my review comments and tests done. These are not scientific, but more towards usefulness in regards to three major crafting needs in my household -

• Toddler Craft time - no mess, fun glues which are easy to use
• Scrapbooking - acid free, must grip well, and not destroy the creation
• Other mixed media work - portability and no mess for the glue, reliability in stickiness

This is the last of three reviews on UHU products. We will be Reviewing three different types of Glues and their usage. I would like to thank NMC of the US for sending me some sample packs of these glues to play with.

UHU Scrapbooker’s Pen Glue

I normally don’t like the glues that come in these plastic tubey things - I never seem to have much joy getting the glue to come out evenly (and with some of a very thick consistency - at all!). But not in the case of the new UHU Scrapbooker’s Pen - which come two to a pack. The acid-free and transparent glue inside is liquid enough to just need a very small squeeze. The applicator top is also a nice one - slanted to give a good coverage. Even my daughter could get this to work well, and loved to dab and squeeze on a small amount of glue for herself.

This glue promised one big thing of interest to scrapbookers and collage artists alike - it promised not to warp paper. This is a biggie - especially when applying thinner papers to each other. So I took the promise to a test, and did up a sample vellum piece, marked out with six rough squares. On the backs of these squares I applied a coverage of six different glues, and allowed these to dry to test for warp of vellums. We scrapbookers know how easily vellums warp, and how many glues show through when used on this medium also. The results were surprising : -

1. UHU Twist & Glue - a strong and very wet adhesive, which warped the vellum considerably, and left showable streaks and blobs underneath. Not unexpected.
2. UHU Glue stic - actually the pink one. This dried quickly, and left no warping, but also little stickiness.
3. UHU Scrapbooker’s Pen - no warp, as promised. You can see glue streaks under the vellum, as I applied quite a bit of glue here.
4. PVA - interestingly, after the white film had dried on this, normal PVA glue appears the most transparent underneath vellum than any of the others. However, as it is quite thick on application, there was some warping.
5. A named brand glue pen - of two way glue. This glue is supposed to remain repositionable for some time (ie tacky but movable) and then dry. 28 hours later and it’s still tacky under the vellum.
6. Diamond Glaze - a glaze glue which forms a shell of transparency, but normally good at gripping together shiney-sided mediums. Once it had hardened, DG manage to warp the vellum the worse of all the glues chosen in this test, and is more see-able than any of the others also.

So, under test, the UHU Scrapbooker’s Pen lived up to its promises - no warping, and regarding transparency, it did better than many others. The consistency is also great to work with. For paper to paper applications where a strong and quick drying glue which doesn’t warp is needed - then this glue is definately recommended.

Comments

[Lupus-Lou]

I'd be interested to know your view of the Sticky Fingers Vellum glue. Have you used it?

If you haven't, just drop me a line and I will send you one to try.

Kym