Craft Adhesives - Oldies but Goodies

This past month, I've taken my plastic canvas satin ribbon crosses in the photo and made them into necklaces. They aren't sturdy, heavy duty necklaces because the plastic canvas crosses are more bookmark-quality. But they are nice enough for simple wear and a friend of mine has taken to giving them out in nursing homes.
 
To make the change to necklaces, I had to snip the ribbon about a 1/4" from the top of the cross. When I was using simple Offray Spool O'Ribbon 1/8" satin ribbon, simple glue-dots were great for tacking down the tab at the top before attaching the "necklace." I ended up making the necklace for over the head with clear plastic lacing which comes on 100' spools. I cut 36" of lacing, threaded it through the outside holes on the 2nd row from the top, wove it through once again, and tied two knots at the top with about 3/4" of each end of the strand free. I pulled the top strands tight, pulled the knots up tight, then pulled apart the lacing below the knots to make it tight.

Anyhow, I managed to work out a good version.

That is, until I got to 20 of them which I made with Essentials silver metallic and gold metallic ribbon. This ribbon is heavier than the satin ribbon, and a different texture. I slapped the little glue-dots on them, and found they would not "hold." I had 20 pretty little metallic ribbon crosses with little ribbon nubs sticking straight up.

I pulled out the super-glue and tried that. It came out too thin and it got all over. Took me a while to get it off my kitchen counter, especially when I realized paper towels weren't going to do the job. Then I had to pry my fingers away from my fingernails where it ran under. Finally, I grabbed nail polish remover to do the rest and found that I had accidentally grabbed the newer non-acetone version (for folks with acrylic nails, which I do not have) and that it didn't work.

I had to have those cross necklaces finished the next day. Finally, my eyes located, somehow, in my clutter, a beloved oldie-but-goodie, Elmer's Glue-All.

You guessed it. It not only did the trick, it held better than the glue dots did on the satin ribbon and it dried very quickly. I used spring clothespins to hold each one down until they dried.

So I'm sharing another of life's lessons. Modern technology might be great, but don't shove aside things that have worked in the past - they just might work for newer products as well.

I still hope to post a photo of the cross necklace, soon - I just haven't had a chance to take the photo.