Vent About Letter Stickers

I just recently used some Felicity Jane puffy letter stickers and they weren't sticky. I used my Nuvo liquid adhesive and they still didn't stick. I had to sew over the letters. Such a pain.

Even worse than not sticking to a page is when Thickers fall to the bottom of the package so I can’t even tell what letters I have.

One of my biggest pet peeves about embellishments is sticky stuff that doesn't stick. I hate when that happens with alpha stickers. I also hate it when washi tape starts to lift or when you can't peel it off from the roll. It's like it sticks where it's not supposed to stick and doesn't stick where it is supposed to.

Sometimes I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with they way the stickers are stored and transported before they get to the store. I never know why that happens. I always just glue them to my layouts knowing they can easily fall off.

So the likely culprit is two-fold here. *puts on museum conservation hat*

Adhesive is what is known in the conservation world as an unstable material. That's part of what gives it its original properties. Most materials are unstable; they degrade due to environmental factors. That's one of the reasons environmental stability for collections storage is a high priority for a curator.

Some materials are inherently volatile/hazardous, such as cellulose nitrate (old film), organics, anything with a friable surface, etc. Most modern plastics and adhesives fall into this group. They degrade over time even in the best of storage conditions. When dealing with composite objects - which is near universal in the realm of papercraft; the adhesive is being used to attach something with itself - things get even worse. You get interactions between the two materials. As Night Owl suggested, having a rigid paper material next to an adhesive means you now have two materials that react to changes in relative humidity *very* differently conjoined. Even small fluctuations will cause paper based materials to swell and shrink. On a micro level this breaks down the adhesive bonds or tears tiny paper fibers away from the adhesion. At the same time things like tape - itself a composite of plastic film carrier and adhesive - are degrading. Plastics lose their plasticizers as they age, becoming more brittle, yellow and shrinking. If you've ever looked at something with very old tape on it, you may have seen this in action. The carrier/backing falls right off and a gritty, yellow residue is left on the original surface. This is the adhesive, or what's left of it. All told it's a recipe for failure. Sticky adhesive is not a stable or desirable long term method of adhesion. Being exposed to heat, light and/or friction on top of changes in temp/humidity will accelerate failure. It's highly probable such exposures have already happened during transportation and manufacture of the original product before it's even purchased by the end consumer.

So what does that mean for the average scrapbooker, cardmaker or papercrafter? Favouring liquid curing adhesives which do not retain their stickiness once dry will make your creations more durable and stable. Physical attachment (such as sewing) is another option with great security and longevity. Where there is no option other than to use non-curing adhesive, restricting use to non-porous materials will increase stability.

That is so frustrating!

I tend to go back and forth between:
Doesn't stick well at all, have to add adhesive.
Sticks too well, and not removable. If I am doing an alphabet title, and one letter is crooked. Try to remove it for re-positioning and it pull or tears the paper off.