Get Your Wax On: Laminated Wax "Paper"

Hello, hello, hello everyone!  I had such a good weekend and I even had time to squeeze in a new technique:)  Like a lot of folks out there, I've been playing around with foil and my heat laminator.  This is *not* that post, lol!  

Instead, I've been playing with an alternative use for that heat laminator.  I took advantage of the heat of the laminator and decided to laminate crayons!  Well, slivers of crayons at least.  I used my microplane to grate crayons into a laminating pouch before running it through the machine.  The resulting "paper" is perfect for die cutting and backgrounds.  For this card, I use a large piece inside a die cut aperture.  

Altenew Label Love stamps, Sizzix Branch with Leaves die

It's hard to really capture the soft beauty of the melted wax, but here's a close up..

For the card, I die cut a piece of the same laminated "paper" with a butterfly die.  Then I layered the butterfly on some vellum.  I wish I knew how to get better pics of this.  The color is just so soft and pretty!

Avery Elle Weather It stamps, Paper Smooches Butterfly Duet die

Here's a little closer view of the butterfly...

After some experimentation, here are my suggestions if you want to try this technique out for yourself:
1) Resist the urge to load up with the grated crayons.  A little really goes a long way since the wax really thins out when it's melted.
2) Don't use too many colors.  Similar colors blend well, but too many colors can start to get brown/muddy.  If you want to use many different colors, space them out over the pouch.
3) Use the 3 mil pouches.  For this technique to work best, you want the contents of the pouch to heat up.  The 5 mil pouches are a bit too thick.  

If you want to see how I created the laminated wax "paper" that I used in the cards above, check out this video...

Thank you so much for stopping by!  Hope you have a wonderful week!

Mahalo and Aloha,

jj