Get Rollin' Memory Essentials

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reported by Lexi Daly

Clearsnap recently introduced a new line of wheel tools in their Memory Essentials line. The Get Rollin' wheels are adhesive covered clear wheels, designed to use with anything you can stick to the adhesive and roll through ink, creating a wheel stamp of your own design.

Although you can stick anything on the adhesive--lace, rubber bands, or anything that will leave an impression--the main reason this new type of wheel caught my eye is that they are also billed as a great tool to use with clear stamps, which I have a lot of. Just stick them all over the wheel and get rollin'!

The wheel comes in two sizes, standard and jumbo and includes five layers of adhesive on the wheel. Refills are also available. The standard wheel is listed at $6.50, the jumbo for $8.00 and the refills for $4.00 and $5.00 respectively. You can buy inking handles and cartridges for use with wheels as well. For this article, I started off with the basic handles, using my own ink pads. But I also discovered that I could use the inking handles and cartridges I already have from Stampin' Up! Here is an overview of my supplies and the wheeled elements I made.

As with any new tool, my first play was just to try different images on scratch paper. Since my main interest in this new tool was a new way to use my clear stamps, that is what I chose to focus on. I thought letters and numbers could make great backgrounds, so that's what I tried first. I used the numbers on the standard wheel, lined up straight and in order (pictured on the wheel at the top right), and I used the letters placed randomly on the jumbo wheel (sample in center). I also wanted to see how a longer image would fit, like the fence above. It actually wasn't long enough to go all the way around, but having it mounted on the wheel did allow for more fluid curving, as though I were stamping the fence on a hill. For most of these samples, I simply inked up my wheel on an ink pad and rolled away. Then I had the idea to make a sheet of wrapping paper with the numbers and tried my Stampin' Up! inking handle and cartridge as I mentioned above--easy peasy and yet another use for something I already had!

After stamping and cleaning the fence, I noticed that the exposed portion of my sticky strip was not so sticky, so I decided to peel off a layer. It works basically like a sticky lint roller--peel off the top layer to expose another--but I did have trouble finding the end. It didn't tear automatically, so I had to be careful not to take off too much and then cut off where I thought it should be with scissors. It's not that big of a deal, but definitely something to be aware of.

Of course, I couldn't just stop with simple scratch paper stamping, so I used each element on a project...

baby mouse {the saltbox studio}, clear flower alpha, note card & ribbon {a muse}

all stamps {the saltbox studio}, note card & star twinkle stickers {a muse}

balloon mouse {the saltbox studio}, clear numbers, note card & ribbon {a muse}

So, to sum it all up...

Pros:

• easy to use
• a new twist on wheel stamping
• works with things you might already have

Cons:

• the sticky strip didn't seem to be perforated for easy peeling

The new Get Rollin' Adhesive Wheels can be found at various stamping and scrapping stores and online directly from Clearsnap. Do you have one already? We'd love to hear what you think and see what you've created with it!