Love my Life - Heather McMahon (with some tips about "Glue")

Hello and welcome back to the Dusty Attic blog!

It's Heather McMahon here with you today and I want to talk about something that isn't dreadfully exciting but is actually really important to all our work. It's glue. Yep, glue. But this is no ordinary glue - it's Dusty Attic's Clear Gloss Varnish!

Firstly, I'll show you my layout then I can explain why Clear Gloss Varnish is sooo amazing!

Now here's the first interesting thing about Clear Gloss Varnish. Although it's a varnish, it's actually far more useful as a glue. I always use it to glue my chippies. It's fantastic for any item that needs a good strong glue to hold it in place. On this layout I've used it on every chippie, which actually is everything on my page. The only thing I don't use it for is to attach the photo. It depends on what quality your photo paper is but it can sometimes faintly show through. I stick to double-sided tape for the photos.

As you can see here, I've layered chippies on top of chippies on top of chippies. Some of those red flowers are only attached by a very small part of a petal or two, yet Clear Gloss Varnish is still strong enough to hold them.

I used Magicals, a couple of stamps and a bit of stencilling on the background but everything else on the layout is Dusty Attic chippies.

Now the second amazing thing about Clear Gloss Varnish is that it makes a fabulous glossy varnish - no surprises there! I use it on top of my chippies to add a gorgeous glossy finish. A hint: do this when your layout is otherwise finished. Apply the varnish direct from the bottle onto your chippies or other suitable embellishments. Then put it aside to dry overnight. Keep it out of the way of kids, animals or your own elbows while it dries!

Here are what my flowers looked like before I applied the varnish:

Here they are after the varnish, while the varnish was still wet.

And here they are the next day when the varnish has dried. Unfortunately, this isn't really showing the gloss as I took this photo on an overcast day.

And the third amazing reason for always using Clear Gloss Varnish? It doesn't dry up in the nozzle! Other similar products seem to be prone to doing this, meaning we forever have to unblock them with a pin, but not this one! Of course, if you leave it with the lid off for a period of time, any glue will dry out and block the nozzle.

So there you have it - Heather's hot tip for an easy, reliable, fuss-free glue - and varnish!

Here are the Dusty Attic products I used:

Branch #3 DA1094

Spring Blooms #2 DA1285

Elegant Swirls #9 DA1129

Hashtag Saying DA1076

Flutterbies #3 DA0766

Page Pebbles #7 DA1112

and of course......

Dusty in Colour Clear Gloss Varnish DA0901

Happy scrappin'!


Heather McMahon