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If you have Pink Fresh or some other brand of metallic rub ons, they may not be any good even if they aren't very old. Mine are from 2015. I've attempted a few of them on the ICAD cards and they didn't stick. I've had to improvise with markers, pencils, anything to patch them up. I've tried gluing them down with gel medium, no good. They don't stick well enough to the release plastic to just use them as a transparency.

Some of Tim's old rub ons are also fragile but can be rubbed down and will mostly stick.

Some Basic Grey ones from 2008 are fine even though they take a lot of rubbing.

I know we've talked about this before but there is no use hoarding them for the perfect project if they don't work.

Isn't that the truth. I found a big box of them (from my days of doing She Art) last night. I'll probably just dump them. Too frustrating to sort through in hopes of finding some that will work. Thank goodness embossing powders don't have an expiration date!

Maybe I should dump the few I have languishing in a file folder.

Regarding Pam's embossing powders comment,

I heard something interesting over at Stamp Nation the other day. They are carrying WOW embossing powders in Catherine's store and the manufacturers told her that they are naturally non-static if kept in the original packaging but placing them in the plastic storage containers makes them get staticky.

By storage containers I mean a la Jennifer McGuire and others - those sandwich etc. boxes.

Interesting, I guess it makes sense. I just just the anti static pouch thing, but going forward I might rethink that.

I like rub-ons too much to just ditch whatever ones I have. If I want to use some on a project I can always test one on a piece of cardstock first to see if the sheet is still good, and in my experience at least half of them are. I used some the other day that were from Autumn Leaves circa 2004 and they went on like butter. I also know that warming them up between the palms of your hand, before you remove the backing sheet, often helps.

Interesting information about the WOW embossing powders. I wonder if that's true for all brands?

nancine wrote:Maybe I should dump the few I have languishing in a file folder.

Regarding Pam's embossing powders comment,

I heard something interesting over at Stamp Nation the other day. They are carrying WOW embossing powders in Catherine's store and the manufacturers told her that they are naturally non-static if kept in the original packaging but placing them in the plastic storage containers makes them get staticky.

By storage containers I mean a la Jennifer McGuire and others - those sandwich etc. boxes.

Interesting, I guess it makes sense. I just just the anti static pouch thing, but going forward I might rethink that.

That is interesting. Mine are in a cardboard box so I'm assuming that they'll be less staticky. I do find that some are more staticky than others.

This thread and my challenge should tell us all something - if you loved it enough to buy it, USE IT! Don't let it sit until it's useless, obsolete, or you don't have the perfect LO or card for it.

So true Pam. Reconsidered pitching mine. I sort of like the broken designs in a background - when that's the look I'm going for.

pbp908 wrote:This thread and my challenge should tell us all something - if you loved it enough to buy it, USE IT! Don't let it sit until it's useless, obsolete, or you don't have the perfect LO or card for it.

Absolutely!

pamcook wrote:So true Pam. Reconsidered pitching mine. I sort of like the broken designs in a background - when that's the look I'm going for.

Yes, it used to be a good way to add interest when we were doing grungy stuff or art journal pages. I think you could still use some of the broken partial images in some of your clusters for some background patterns. My frustration here was I was trying to use words so really would have liked all the letters in them

This is a great discussion. Amazingly I never invested in rub-ons. I can think of one set of flourishes I bought at a Tuesday Morning plus a few I've been gifted and thats it!

Nancy thanks for the tip on embossing powder containers. All of mine are still in the original pots except when I went all out for the Ultra Thick stuff (due to a Suze Weinberg class I took from her) when it was the craze. I bought the lifetime supply size and put it in a Gladware container. I wonder if it's still good? While playing with my craft group one Wednesday at "Beverly's", Beverly herself said she felt embossing powder had a shelf life. We worked with one brand that day that someone had brought and it just didn't work at all.

That's weird that embossing powder would have a shelf life. I always thought it was just little powdered plastic we were melting. Some of it sure smelled that way so it put me off using it for a long time. It was one brand that smelled like plastic but I can't remember who it was.

Knocking on wood - mine are in original containers and still work. I do re-ink my Versatel pad from time to time (and boy is it ugly!).

Marianne, yes broken letters/words would be annoying!