One of our most popular questions are: How do you highlight your wax seal impression? What pens or highlighting powder do you use? In this post we will show you, what pens and powders we personally use and our tips and recommendations! 

Highlighting Pen and Powder

Sakura Pen Touch in Gold 

This is our favourite way of highlighting wax seal impressions. If done correctly it gives the most clear impression with a beautiful metallic gold sheen. However you need to be careful. Sometimes the ink will flow too quickly and it will completely flood the impression with ink. Before I use this pen, I dab it on a piece of tissue first to get the ink flowing and to ensure that the ink is not flowing too fast.

Gold Metallic Sharpie 

A sharpie highlights the design well however the gold colour is fairly dull and lacks a metallic sheen.

Gold felt tip pen

This is a good substitute for the Sakura Pen Touch. It has a lovely gold metallic sheen however I found that it didn’t flow as well and it was more difficult to accurately highlight the design. 

Gold powder 

For designs with a larger raised area I use a gold powder to highlight the design.  Especially if the raised area has detailing, pens like the Sakura Pen Touch tend to flood the design and gives a messier finishing.

Surprisingly, gold eye shadow stays on relatively well and is a great alternative to gold powders specifically for crafting. I get the best impression when I use my fingers rather than a brush. This means that the finish result might be messy but I rather like this look. 

Although I haven’t tried it yet, I have heard that Perfect Pearls powders could also be used to highlight wax stamp designs. The finished result is also clear and beautiful. 
 

Reverse Stamp Highlighting 

Encore Metallic Ink Pads 

You can use a metallic ink pad to give you a reverse impression! So usually you would highlight the raised area but you can also use it to highlight the flat area, giving you a reverse gold impression. 

To do this, simply press the stamp into the ink pad before use. Make sure you have an even spread of ink and then use the sealing stamp as you would usually. After using the stamp, use a paper towel to clean the stamp. 

The metallic ink leaves an opaque golden impression. To make the design pop more, I find that darker marble wax creates the most unique impression.

Metallic Ink Paste 

Using the same method as above I used gold ink paste to highlight the design. With this ink, you can still see the wax colour with an additional metallic shine.

Products used:

Book of Dreams Wax Seal Stamp

Purple Sunset Wax Seal Beads

Sky Blue - Pineapple shaped wax