 Hi there, it's Sandy Alnok and today I'm going to make an elegant wax seal card embellishment. And I'll be starting by making the cards with some supplies from Trinity, a slim line and a mini slim line so you can see the size difference between the two of them. I've got some Neenah card stock in my Misti de-static powder so that the powder doesn't stick where I don't want it to and stamping the image in VersaMark Clear Ink so that the embossing powder from Wow will stick to it and then I shake off the excess onto scrap paper so I can pour it back into the container for future use. My white and my clear I have in big Tupperware things but the other colors I just leave in their little jars and the embossing powder melts so beautifully and it looks so beautiful. This stamp actually has smiley faces so you can make cutesy flowers or you can make them elegant like this, different ways that you can approach the same stamp set. When I did my die cutting I did not cut the dies apart. That left me with a really nice thin frame border that I could add some embossing powder to so I tapped on the ink and then poured on the embossing powder and make sure when you do the heat setting that you remove the scrap sheet of paper with all that powder on it. I'm not going to tell you why that I know that you should do that. Just you should do that. Don't don't blow any of the powder around. OK, next up I'm taping all these pieces together so that I end up with a really flat layer because I'm going to use a thick embellishment that's going to be wax. So I want to have most of the rest of the paper be really flat. So I just have the top layer of all of those taped together ones and then the flowers behind it and that's it. So next up is making a wax seal and I'm going to do some comparisons first. I have put a bunch of my different wax beads into jars and I'll have another video on that because I have plans for what I'm going to do with that. But I wanted to show you just some of the different ways that they deliver wax to you that you can then use in making some seals. These are called either beads. Some companies call them pellets. They all different kinds of names people have for them. Pebbles, I think is another one, but they're all basically the same thing. Little pieces of wax that are chopped up and some of them will deliver them in little containers, little plastic containers, lots of ways to store them. There are also candles and there are wickless and wicked candles. The wicked ones I find are not good to use because I end up with soot in the wax. So I end up with little black streaks, which I don't find particularly beautiful. So I just cut the wax off because I don't want to throw these away. However, some of you might find that using candle wax and not just regular candle wax is a ceiling wax, but using it in candle form or in the glue stick form is going to allow you to store them better. So if you would be more comfortable storing long sticks of something as opposed to having little pellets or beads or whatever, then that might be a better way for you to buy wax. And now these little beads are all melted together. And this one, I did use all the metallic ones from that yellow collection. And so there's a couple of different types of colors in there. Cleaned out my spoon so I could throw the next piece in there. That's the one that was a glue stick type of format. And then I'll put the stamp onto the wax and the weight of the stamp itself usually presses the image in there. You don't have to push hard or anything in general. And I have a little piece of tape where I've pointed to the top of my stamp. So I try to get them straight. I've learned that trick now because I've stamped enough of them way crooked. But you can see my little heart is now stamped into that wax. So this one is kind of working its way toward being melted. I play with my wax a lot. I enjoy watching it melt. There's just something about that that gives me great joy and slows me down in this crazy paced world I live in. So there's, I really am enjoying all of the learning that I'm doing about these wax seals. And when I have an excuse to play with them, I do. So this one's ready to roll. And remember, this was a wax stick that's meant for a glue gun. But you can use them just like this with a spoon if you choose to buy some and then you change your mind and decide you don't like glue guns after all. I'll clean this out so I can have a pure test of the next one, which is going to be that candle, a piece of a candle. Pop that in so it starts cooking while I work on getting the stamping done on this last one. On this last one, I am going to have a full video, really long one on glue guns and the pros and cons of them, because I think they have some pros, but they also have some really big cons in my world. So I won't be using them except in that video, because I did a massive test and I want to wait for the test results before I share that video with you. So one of the tests that I discovered I needed to figure out how to run soon is going to be on why this particular candle piece took forever to melt. Like I even cut out footage. It took forever to melt this puppy. And it kind of formed a little weird thing on the surface. Just some rather strange things could be the poor quality of them because they were really cheap. And I'm always wary of super cheap things that I buy, like, you know, on Amazon or something, because they're usually really, really cheap and you don't get as good a results. And with this one, I really struggled with the fact that it was just not melting. It was just not doing anything. But I do want to test. As I said, I've been buying a lot of different wax. I've been buying from different companies. I want to see if there are certain companies that are better than others, that kind of thing. There are some very high end companies. And I've bought just a little bit from them, can't afford much, but I'm going to try them because I want to be able to compare high end stuff to the low end, much more affordable types of things. Just so I know the difference. Sometimes for me, just knowing what makes something better or worse helps me to know when I want to use one versus another. This final goal test is with Beads by Artisair. And Artisair is a company up in Canada. They have excellent customer service. I was shocked at how fast they sent the order out to me. Really quickly, they have free shipping over 50 bucks. So if you're going to order some stuff, that's a good way to do it. Just put them all together and get free shipping. Their beads are supposed to be like one seal per bead. And they're bigger beads, as you can see than the other little teeny tiny ones. And in this particular one, I did not wait long enough for it to fully melt. And so I had trouble getting this one bead to come out onto the paper and ended up switching to two beads. But when you see it pour out on the card, you'll know that it actually behaved better later on. And I just was not waiting long enough in this particular portion. So I was just playing around with it, wanted to move on. The dogs were like wanting to go outside. And I just went faster, just a few seconds, probably faster than I ought because the wax seemed to get stuck in the spoon. It was thicker than I remembered it being a few days before when I had tested out some Artis Air beads. And voila, I had a mess on my hands because I couldn't get the wax to come out. And then I ended up with a smudge when I stamped it. So on an envelope, it might be doable because you don't need anything to be perfect. These are not meant to be absolute perfection every single time. They're handmade. So part of the joy of them is that they look very hand-done and that sort of thing. But this just did not feel right to me. And I was like, okay, this is weird because a few days ago it worked just great. So I tried doing instead two beads. So there's two in there melting. I compared the wax colors to my embossing and the Artis Air was going to be the color of choice. So I thought, okay. Well, let's see how two works so that I know what to do when I get to my cards. This is all, of course, a good reason to practice ahead of time. And you can practice by making your seals on wax paper and then you can peel them off and then crush them up and remelt them into a spoon again and make another seal out of them and not waste that wax. So here is my second attempt using the two beads. Again, I didn't wait long enough. Look at that, not pouring off of the spoon. It's just frustrating to me when that happens and it's user error here. It's all my own fault. But you will see in a moment how the wax should pour off of the spoon itself when I get to show you the cards. So I'll stamp this puppy and then we'll compare the different waxes so you can see the quality difference on the two on the right. Those are both Artis Air and they stay super shiny. Look at the shine in the outside of that heart. They stay very glassy. The others have weird textures in them, you know, in the center portions, those round lines going around. Some of it looks distressed. Some of it looks bubbly and that's the difference you get in quality. Now, for crafters that may not matter, just put the embellishment on and get it done and you don't have to worry about super shiny. But if you are worried about super shiny then getting some better wax to have for special occasions might be a good thing. But look at how nice this pours off. Just look at that. That's how it's supposed to go. See, it's possible for me to do it right. It just takes waiting a little bit longer. I need to be a little more patient. So get that stamp on here. Make that all beautiful and perfect. Look at that splooge. There's just something very satisfying about that. And then I will remove it and there is the finished card. Look how gorgeous that looks. Ain't that pretty? You make me so happy. So the other one, I did not do such a great job on because I splooge right over the you because I was not so smart. Yeah, you know, we live and we learn and that will be one of the things I will learn. Hopefully whoever gets that card will still like it. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this video and learned something from it. Links to all the supplies are in the doobly-doo. More information on the blog and I will see you again very soon. Take care. Bye bye.