Monday, February 6, 2017

InCoWriMo and Sealing Wax

February is International Correspondence Writing Month, InCoWriMo for short.  The idea is to send a letter, postcard, or note everyday in the month.  This is the second year I've participated in this postal extravaganza. 

Today I wrote a long overdue letter to a penpal, and I thought I would embellish it with a wax seal.  I'm a pretty crafty person.  It's not often that I have a craft failure, but my history with sealing wax has been dismal.  I am a sealing wax klutz. But the memory of my last wax disaster had faded, so I thought I'd give it another go.  

 
After burning my thumb, setting a paper towel on fire, and ruining an envelope with an ugly seal, I remembered that I had ordered a sealing wax spoon right after my last wax failure.  Miraculously, I found it in my craft room without having to tear the place up.  Then - for the ka-zillionth time - I settled down in my chair with my iPad and watched videos about sealing wax.  I even found one that showed the spoon method.  Here's the happy result.  If I were a rooster, I'd crow!
 
 As per the Youtube instructions, I held the spoon over a lighted candle and rubbed the stick of sealing wax around in the spoon until I had a nice pool of melted wax.  This nifty little spoon has a tiny spout so I poured the melted wax on the envelope and stamped it with my crown wax stamp.  Success!  Of course, some people have success by simply holding the wax stick over the candle until the end begins to melt and dripping melted wax directly onto the envelope.  When I do this I end up with burned fingers and black soot in the melted wax.  From now on it's the spoon for me! -------- By the way, if you want to participate in InCoWriMo, but don't know who to write to, my address is on the envelope above.