Quilled Poppy in Progress (4) & New Glue Love

I'm in love with a new glue for quilling! Although the esteemed Ann Martin vouched for Martha Stewart's All-Purpose Gel Adhesive, at the time I was on a mission to find a thick, quick drying glue – so I think I pre-judged before giving it a proper chance, fearing it too wet for my liking. Now I plan to use several glues per project. Just look how thinly it spreads on my yogurt lid!

I dipped, dipped, and re-dipped far more times than would have been possible with my other white glues. When skin develops on my white glue, my frugal fingers yearn to quickly dip one last time, only to berate myself as I find skin scabs clinging to my strip – doh!

When skin is without a doubt going to prevent any more dipping in a particularly deep puddle of glue, I will sometimes even poke it like an urgent pimple, pumping the dregs to add that last tiny dab needed in some obscure spot – I guess I'm too impatient to uncork my glue bottle?


With this gel, it gets thicker as it dries, but without skin (just like Ann said). I tried to take a shot here to show you how I scraped the gel remnants and was still able to use it! This would have been impossible to do with the white glue.

Look how little glue shows on the edge.

And here's where I'm at today. Not as far as last time, more of an mini-update because I really needed to make a quick addendum to the glue posting.

Here's another thing I'm noticing about what I'm doing. I kind of outline with the darkest strips first to give myself a visual guide. Then I fill in with the medium and light strips. However, when I'm not consciously thinking, I notice my filling happens in the middle. So I deliberately make some strips closer to each other and not quite so parallel to give it a more random pattern.

Another example where I place some strips deliberately closer rather than in the middle.

Thanks for opening my eyes yet again Ann!