Have you seen a glue gun at your Dollar Tree? Were you tempted to pick it up but thought, “There’s no way that works.” So did I! But, it was only a dollar and I decided to grab one and see. It would be nice to have a couple extra glue guns laying around. I took it home, and put it to the test, and let me tell you what I decided.
*Apparently Dollar Tree sells two different glue guns. This review is for the Mini. It has an orange and silver tip. The regular’s tip is plain silver.*
Pros
- It doesn’t get very hot so it would work well for kids.
- The cord is a nice long length.
- It comes with a little kickstand to prop it up off the table.
- It works. You pull the trigger, glue comes out.
- The nozzle is pretty small, so theoretically, you could do intricate projects.
Cons
- It doesn’t get very hot so the glue dries too fast.
- The glue comes out in globs rather than a stream.
- After adding a new glue stick (which you have to do every five seconds because of the big globs), you have to wait for it to warm up again.
- The glue stick doesn’t feed itself down very well, so you have to push it with your hand.
I made several different projects with this glue gun. The first, was a Dollar Tree DIY snowman using leftover Halloween pumpkins. The glue gun worked fine. I wasn’t doing anything super intricate or time sensitive, so the globing and stick refilling was fine. I was feeling pretty pleased with the product.
Then, I tried to do a 3D paper snow globe with it. It did not go well! I was doing my best to hold little pieces of paper exactly in place and the glue was going every which way. I couldn’t get a good seal on my globe and all of the little Styrofoam balls fell out into my carpet. The glue was drying too fast and I couldn’t reload the gun fast enough to get both sides of the pieces ready at the same time for attachment. It was a total fail.
Overall, I don’t think I will be using this glue gun very much, but I’m not upset I bought it. I think this would be a fine one for my kids to use and it works ok for simple projects. I might even buy one or two more to use with some glitter glue sticks for kid crafts. However, I wouldn’t recommend this glue gun for a serious crafter. It’s not really that great and you can get a perfectly decent one for not that much more.
What other Dollar Tree items are you curious about? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!
