Wax Paper Resist Background Technique

I love art and art techniques that allow me to use random household items. There’s something gratifying about it. You don’t have to go out to buy anything special plus the neat fact that something that usually lives in the kitchen drawer can produce such cool art effects.

And today, I’m going to show you how to make a fun resist background using wax paper and spray inks.

This technique does require a little bit of extra setup, however. Ironing is involved so you might need a board or whatever you use to iron on.

+ an iron

First, grab yourself a piece of wax paper.

You want wax paper and not parchment paper. Parchment paper is lined with silicone, making it good for baking. But we want the wax on wax paper to melt off of it. Plus, it's waxed on both sides, making it twice as usable.

Then we're going to crumple it into a ball.

And then uncrumple it.

Now we're going to layer it with card stock onto our ironing boards - card stock first, then the wax paper...

And then another piece of card stock.

Grab your heated iron and start ironing the top piece of card stock.

Get to as close as you feel comfortable to the edges and corners. just remember that if you iron on the wax paper, you'll get wax on your iron.

That's why I got myself a little craft iron. Isn't it cute? Not that I iron clothes at all anyway, haha.

When you're done, neither piece of card stock isn't going to look much different, so don't worry.

However, once you start spraying your ink...

...you'll start seeing the wax resist patterns.

Neat huh?

And since you have two pieces of waxed card stock, you get to do it twice!

I tried doing this technique using gloss paper, but I didn't think it turned out as well. At least, it was harder to see the resist patterns.

Here is an altered Rolodex card I made from one of these backgrounds: