Martha Stewart Rub Ons

I also worked on bachelorette party invites this weekend for a friend's upcoming shindig, and while wandering the aisles of Archivers, found these rub ons for a great deal (75% off brought them down to $.98 for 24 images). I have had a love-hate relationship with rub ons in the past, when they transfer well I much prefer them to stamps, they are more precise and crisp. But I've also often had trouble getting them to fully transfer, and sometimes they just don't work for me. But, for this price, I thought I'd give them a try.

I took them home and mocked up my design (TBA), using the trendy color combination of teal blue ("pool") and brown. I punched circles out of the brown just larger than the rub on designs, cut apart the rub ons, and set about rubbing them with the Popsicle stick.

A few things I noticed:
1. they transfer very easily.
2. you can easily see where they transfer, so it was easy to center them in the circles, and if you missed parts - like a few of the dots in the borders - it was pretty easy to go back and re-align them and rub some more. Not as easy if you missed a letter, but since the font was small it was pretty easy to be sure you hit the whole phrase.
3. they are not at all sticky on the back, like most rub ons are, which is probably why they transferred so easily but also made it difficult to keep them in place. Since they are kind of small, you had to hold them with one finger while you rubbed, then be careful not to move the paper or transfer when you moved the finger to rub underneath it. A little learning curve involved, but it was still okay.
4. the design with the little lines making up the ring were impossible. I'm not sure why. The dots and swirls were fine, but the lines just didn't transfer right, and when you went back to go over them again, that actually seemed to transfer more of it BACK TO THE PLASTIC, instead of to the paper. So I think I successfully did 2 of those, and bombed the rest. Oh well. For the price, it was still well worth it for the designs that did work. The color is a very foil-y silver, which really pops on the brown and would be great on any dark background.

Overall, I give these a big thumbs up - especially if you can score them for under a buck. I might have to run back and see if I can scoop up a few more for future use.