When I send out wedding invitations, party invites, and other fancy letters or cards, I think it’s nice to do a little something special with them. I do calligraphy on them, or add golden accents, and those are all very nice. But to do something special with the envelope itself, I’ve often felt limited to what I can feature. A colored envelope? Sure. A sticker? Maybe. For a really classy look, though, it takes only a few seconds to affix a wax seal. The seal can be a monogram, a crest, or another design. I love adding a wax seal to a special envelope but I don’t necessarily like the look every time. When I drip wax onto the envelope, and stamp it, I find the edges to be uneven almost every time. So, I got the idea to make the stamps ahead of time, and I could trim these to be perfect. When you do the same, you can create elegant wax seals for your own envelopes.
Use wax paper or foil to make your wax stamps. Roll out a long piece and lay it on a hard surface. The wax you use can be any color and could be scented or unscented. You can burn a candle, dripping the wax on the foil or wax paper, or you can melt wax and use it.
There are lots of things you can use to stamp an image onto a splatter of wax. Wooden or metal letters, tiny toys, objects with raised lettering or images, coins, or even a metal utensil, such as a fork. Things made of glass, wrought iron, wood, or hard plastic, are perfect. You can make each wax stamp exactly alike or create many different ones.
Apply a bit of wax to one area of the foil or wax paper. The amount of wax you use should create a circle the size of a nickel to a quarter, and about the same thickness as such a coin. After dripping the wax onto the foil or wax paper, allow it to cool slightly, then stamp the image into it while it’s warm. Move on to the next stamp, and the next, until you have as many as you want.
The wax envelope seals can be stored for long periods of time by just keeping them covered. Cut the foil or wax paper into strips and you can place the seals in a zipper-lock bag. Keep the wax stamps in a cool environment.
To use a wax seal, pull it off of the paper, and trim where needed. Heat the back of the seal with a blow dryer then stick it to the envelope. Or, drip a dot of wax on the envelope and stick the seal to it. It’s a much better way to seal an envelope, because you don’t have to lick it, and it adds a bit of elegance to any correspondence.