Wax resist paper decorating

Paper that was decorated using wax resist techniques!!

Technique #1 - Rubbings

I gave each student a variety of papers - books pages, music sheets, bond paper, etc, a clear wax crayon and made available some items with texture. They used their clear wax crayons to make rubbings on several of the items and added watercolour which highlighted the rubbings to create some very interesting papers. To the left are the few papers I created as examples for them to use for inspiration. Theirs were far more interesting!!! Not all of them worked out perfectly but in the end but that is the way it goes when we are creating.

Clear wax crayons: Needed to be creative because clear wax crayons are not readily available. I took a bar of parrafin used to seal canning jars and cut it into 1/2" sections using a hot piece of metal and soften their edges a bit with the heat gun. A little time consuming but made perfectly acceptable clear wax crayons for the students to use!!

Items with texture: embossed plastic placemats, embossing folders, texture plates, screening, plastic mesh, fabric, etc.

Technique #2 - Wax resist using wax paper.

We created designs/texture in the wax paper by folding and crumpling, placed it between two layers of bond paper, covered both sides with plain newsprint, placed the sandwich on a pad of newspaper and used a hot iron to transfer the design from the wax paper to the bond paper. Again, they added watercolour to bring out the design created by the wax. A more subtle design - the bottom one in the photo above - which gives a different feel to the decorative paper.

These are both techniques you can use at home for use in your cardmaking!!

Therese