Saturday, June 07, 2008

TOOL SHOUT-OUT

I love everything there is about scrapping. I love PPs, adhesives and all the embellishments. But I think what I probably love the MOST are the tools available. If there is a new tool that looks even remotely interesting, I'll buy it without a thought.

So a big part of the embellishments available in the scrapping market today are rub-ons. I think most people would be familiar with the wooden ice cream stick that comes with most rub-ons made by Making Memories and Fancy Pants Design to name but a few.

wooden ice cream stick

Then you get the more sophisticated version of the wooden stick. This comes from Heidi Swapp and it has two functional ends (a pointy tip and a slanted edge).

wooden stylus with a pointy tip and slanted edge

American Crafts' version of the "pointy-tip-and-slanted-edge" rub-on tool has the same design but is made of plastic and in what I would think is a cool gun metal grey colour.


plastic version of stylus with pointy tip and slanted edge

Of course you can also BUY dedicated rub-on tools/stylus like the one below made by EK Success. This special tool has a rubber body which makes for easier gripping. The two functional ends are made from hard plastic. You get one flat end and a double slanted edge on the other (sorry best way I could describe it).

EK Success Rub-on stylus

So I have been happily using whichever run-on tool is packaged with the rub-ons that I buy. I keep the EK Success stylus in my tool caddy on my desk but I find that the hard plastic makes for difficult rubbing and if I rub too hard on textured cardstock, the tool would leave "dented" and/or unsightly marks on my cardstock. Personally, I am quite happy with the wooden ice cream stick. But sometimes I still have to put quite a bit of weight on the stick and rub quite hard just to make sure the rub-on is fully transferred. Also, I find that with all the sticks and tool above, I need to rub over the image many times repeatedly to make sure I get every bit on.


But then at Shabby last week, I saw the new Basic Grey Rub-On Roller hanging on the shelf. The Shabby crew tried it out at the Winter CHA and thought it was awesome. I was a little hesitant because of my huge disappointment with the EK Success one but I noticed the roller-ball tip and thought, heck why not. It costs less than $16 and it looks good. Hee. I was just too curious really. So what did I think of it?

HALLELUJAH!
* Cue wondrous and enlightening music (you know what I mean!!) *



The king of all Rub-on stylus (in my humble point of view)

Ok I have only used it on American Crafts and Heidi Grace rub-ons but I should think that it would work the same on rub-ons made by different manufacturers.


The roller-ball tip is just amazing!! It made transferring the rub-on effortless (and I mean that quite literally!!). You only have to rub the roller-ball tip over your rub-on image and voila done! The ease of it made me start hunting around for more rub-ons to use. Haha. The flat edge on the other end is for making sure your image is transferred properly.

The description on its packaging says it all:-

Roller ball rub-on stylus
Rolling ball tip glides smoothly for a controlled application
Flat nylon paddle for setting the rub-on
High-quality design

I think this tool is a MUST-HAVE in any scrapper's tool caddy and it is definitely the best buy of the year for me! Thanks Shabby for bringing it to Brunei!!

5 comments:

Pandachu said...

yay! ur back!! I love it wen u do product reviews!! hey i found this cool site www.craftcritique.com. Very good if u wan to think abt purchasing stuff n ur not sure abt it!

Shabby Chic said...

You're most welcome :)

Shabby Chic said...

You're most welcome :)

Shabby Chic said...

You're most welcome :)

razlin said...

thanks for the basic grey review. i always found it hard to transfer my rub-ons.