Scrapbook glue

I love the Art Glitter glue. You can buy bundles which make it a bit cheaper. They have the best fine tip in my opinion and I feel like I’ve tried about all of them.

I love ink and stencils. I may have a slight obsession! My favorite are the oxide inks from Tim Holtz. I use cheap brushes from Amazon with them.

I also like the Art Glitter Glue. I generally dislike using liquid glue, but I do find myself reaching for this one over and over.

Distress Oxides are generally my favourite for blending and stencilling. They are just so smooth! I will also use my regular Distress Inks if I have it in a colour that I am missing in oxides. I am trying very hard not to duplicate my entire collection of distress in Oxides! I still use the small circular foam tool, but I want to experiment with blending brushes. I need to find a cheap option from either Amazon or AE because I don't want to make a huge investment until I know I can't live without them.

My most favourite glue ever is Cosmic Shimmer. I decant some of it into a small needle nose bottle for using on tiny things. It's a white glue that dries quickly and clear, and its really strong.

Add me to the list of "art glitter glue + distress oxides".

The art glitter glue is just right. And when it dries it is pretty much invisible - no shine.

I'm thinking you mean "bearly" art glue which probably auto-corrected on you
I've heard it's very good too, and similar to the art glitter glue - I'd personally take whichever was cheaper and more available! I can get art glitter glue at my LSS, but the bearly art I would have to order online.

I've tried a LOT of different brands over the years and I'm sold on Bearly Art glue. For inks for stencils, I bounced back and forth and finally landed on two brands; Gina K. and Taylored Expressions. Both do a great job of working with stencils and the inks really do "smooth" out after they sit for a while. Makes even my so-so attempts look good, and my really good attempts look amazing. After much deliberation, I'm sticking with Taylored Expressions. I seem to have more problems with the Gina K ink pads themselves (dry when I open it, running out of ink quickly) and less issues with TE.

Zip Dry Paper Glue is the best glue I know of for gluing down things like gemstones. I learned about it from the ladies at Clear Scraps when I was on their design team. They recommended Zip Dry to me because Zip Dry will reliably adhere to non-porous surfaces for the long term. Most other glues will not adhere to acrylic or other plastics for the long term. Many adhesives will stick to plastic in the short term but fail in the long term. I haven't had any projects made with Zip Dry fail on me, and I made most of my acrylic albums over a decade ago -- like 13 - 15 years ago.

But, Zip Dry is expensive compared to other adhesives. I think it's definitely worth spending the money on for projects that involve non-porous surfaces. It also works really well on porous surfaces like paper and chipboard, but it might be more money than you want to spend for all-purpose gluing where cheaper adhesives will do the job. 

re which ink pads to use for stenciling, I do use ink for stenciling sometimes, but it's more expensive than using paints. To save money, a lot of times I just use acrylic paint instead of ink. I like to experiment with mixing the paints with various other media to get different effects. I also find it a lot easier to mix the exact color I want using acrylic paint. But other than that, you can add me to the list of people in the "Distress Oxide + Stenciling" camp. I don't use the ink pad for that, though. I use the reinkers and apply the ink from a reinker to my tool or directly in the spot I want it.

Did you watch Scrapbook.com's SBC fest videos a couple of months ago? I loved Vicki Boutin's SBCFest class. She inspired me to try using Scrapbook.com's Pops of Color with stencils, too. They gave me bottles of those Pops of Color as freebies with various past purchases, and I just bought yet another bottle in a color I'll use more often. In Vicki's demo, she showed that the Pops of Color can act like a resist, so you can ink blend your background without it affecting the stenciled image. I am excited to play around with that idea but haven't got to it yet.

The SBCFest classes were all free, and they have a replay available. I didn't watch all of them, but Vicki's is definitely worth watching, if you didn't catch it when it originally aired. There were lots of amazing ideas in that one.

PaperAngel, thanks for the mini-review on the VersaFine Clair ink. I've looked at it and thought about buying it, but never got around to trying it. I found your post really helpful and interesting.

Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive is water based, so it will work well for adhering porous surfaces like paper and chipboard to each other. Water-based adhesives typically fail at adhering non-porous surfaces in the long term. For that, it's best to use a solvent-based adhesive.