Beeswax Collage Basics - Pt III

Today on our Beeswax Collage Basics I wanted to start by sharing what our collage looks like so far.... I know I mentioned stamping in the wax in addition to blending in excess wax but forgot that I wanted to share a bit about adding in glittery goodies to the collage.

Blending Excess Wax

You'll notice the areas where the dimensional items were added there is a noticeable thicker layer of beeswax. While you could leave it as is there are a few things you can do to help blend this in better.

The technique I use most often is very simply to heat with my craft tool. I try to focus the heat not necessarily on the dimensional objects themselves but around the edges. This allows the edges to melt and blend in with the wax in the surrounding areas.

As you can see it blended the wax very well and no further work was needed.

If by chance you do find an area where there is excessive wax you can always scrape away a small amount of the wax* prior to heating the edges. After the excess has been removed you will be able to heat and blend as was done above.

*NOTE: Whenever you remove wax from your collage don't throw it away...it can be added right back into the melt pot to be re-used! There is no waste with this craft :)

Adding Bling to Your Beeswax Collage

If you're like me, you love to add a little bit of bling to your projects. Now when I talk about bling, it's not necessarily faux gemstones or glitter. Don't get me wrong...these would be great in your collage but if you have visited here very often, you know how much I LOVE Mica!! I like to think of it as Mother Nature's Bling ;) So, that's what I wanted to show you. You can of course take these basic steps and incorporate ~ glitter, glass glitter, micro or seed beads, gravel, mini shells, etc. It's all good!

1. Determine where on the collage you would like to add your bling.

2. Hold the heat tool over the wax until you see it just begin to melt. With your other hand

(Since this is a two handed technique I couldn't get any good photos so you'll just have to imagine my 3rd hand here sprinkling the mica flakes onto the wax.) sprinkle in this case mica flakes over the molten wax.

3. Remove the heat source and let cool.

4. Once the wax has cooled, shake off excess bling and (Optional) if desired reheat to sink the bling further into the wax.

Here are a couple more examples where I added Mica Flakes to the collage....

Our collage is really coming along nicely!

Tomorrow I'll share how to stamp in beeswax as well as a couple different examples of how to stamp on beeswax.

Hope you'll join me then!