I was very pleased to be selected to be on a review panel for CraftWorld, a thriving crafty community that I enjoy being a part of. I was sent 3 bottles of glue and asked to review them. All opinions are my own. I have not been paid for this review, but given the glues for free, for the purpose of reviewing them.

The 3 glues

The first thing to say is that all three glues did exactly what they should - glue stuff to other stuff. I found them all to perform well and give strong adhesion on a variety of embellishments and card/paper.

I have tried various glues since I began crafting and my go to glue is Cosmic Shimmer dries clear glue, For the following reasons:

1) It dries clear, so doesn't make my projects look messy when it seeps under the die cut if I've used too much (although, as I am a bit of a perfectionist I usually remove these bits with a dedicated pokey tool)

2) I find that it has a small window of wiggle room, if I need to re-position my die cut, mat or layer, though is quite grabby and adheres quickly. This works for me because I have usually planned where I want things to go, measured my mats and layers and use tweezers to position small elements.

3) It is strong. I have had no problem with sequins or buttons falling off my projects.

I decided to test the glues in the following ways - by drawing with them, adding glitter, adhering small elements, adhering intricate die cuts onto a shiny surface and adhering different card and paper to card.

INITIAL PLAY: DRAWING LINES, SHAPES AND ADDING GLITTER

My initial play with the glue was drawing lines and simple shapes with them. Obviously I felt comfortable with the cosmic shimmer, which may be the reason the line and shapes are neater. I found the Stick It! glue pen to come out quite quickly and thickly, hence the second line for a second try, using less pressure. I was surprised with the Anita's Tacky glue at how fine and precise it came out of the nib, even though it is the largest of the bottles.

The cosmic shimmer glue requires you to cut the very tip of the sealed nib off until a hole appears. You can cut more off to get a larger hole, but I used a sharp craft knife and only took a sliver off at a time. I managed to get quite a small hole, similar in size to the Anita's nib. The Stick It! had a noticeably larger opening, which took me a while to get used to.

After drawing the lines and shapes I added some glitter and shook off immediately. It appeared to stick to all of the glues equally well.

GLUING FIDDLY DIE CUTS

The "fiddly gluing" test on shiny card stock

I had an intricate border die close at hand, so decided to cut it up and try sticking a piece of each using each of the glues. This is typical of how I would adhere a fiddly die cut - by using tweezers and dotting the glue onto the b