Wax Paper Transfers: Fail? Success? You decide!

Not unlike the garbage disposal bombs I blogged about last week, this is another pin I've pinned multiple times! 

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I had some wood from Christmas Crafts Past in the closet in my craft room that I knew would be perfect for this project. Unfortunately what I didn't remember is that they're like 12 inches long which was NOT going to work out. So I did what any responsible mother would do in this scenario: I sent it outside with my 9 year old to use the hacksaw to cut it in half. He did a GREAT job! 

A few months ago, I subscribed to Brave Girls' Club Soul School. That's a story for another day but seriously, check it out. I am LOVING it! As part of the curriculum a couple of months ago, we got this beautiful artwork to print and it seemed perfect for the project. 

I don't have a materials shot for you (please forgive me!) but it really just involves wood and wax paper. I pasted the picture into Word (can you see this very well?)

If you're going to try this at home, make sure you mirror the image before you print it. Ask me how I know. I cut my wax paper to 8.5x11 using my paper trimmer because I'm a neurotic freak

I fed the wax paper into the printer; here's where I learned a few things: my printer has different settings like "fast draft" and "photo printing" and "maximum DPI." At first I used the "maximum DPI" setting because I wanted the quality to be really great but it smudged all over the wax paper. Boo. So I changed it to "fast draft" and it went much smoother. My wax paper DID get stuck in the printer a few times because it's super thin, and I can't tell you what I did to finally get it to work. Um, do a dance to the printer gods? It seriously seemed that arbitrary. I DID cut the final strip that went through a little smaller than 8.5. Like, 8.25? Maybe that was the secret. I like to think it was the dancing. 

Now, I thought it would look cool to just put the image on the nekkid wood. The print is kind of vintage-y and I thought a more natural look would be better. I pressed the wet side of the image onto the wood

....lifted it off and voila! 

Okay, pardon the upside-down shot. Seriously, I've uploaded this picture like 5 times every way possible and yet Blogger insists that it's supposed to be this way. Sigh. It's like a metaphor for my life. Anyway, that's what it looked like on the wood. I wasn't super impressed with this, which is sad. I loved this pin! I was so looking forward to this pin! So I decided to try painting the wood and then transferring it over the top of the painted block. Here is the painting...(right side up! Imagine that!)

I printed the image on wax paper again and pressed it on the wood

Removed it....

(Not upside down again. What the heck?!) But I liked THAT even less. Now I was super bummed because I had my heart set on having this beautiful image on this piece of wood that Don Diego risked life and limb cutting. So in an attempt to salvage this project, I printed this same beautiful image onto a piece of vellum

Sorry, this is a blurry picture. Apparently I can only take blurry upside down pictures. (Who me? Overly emotional about the Great Upside Down Picture Incident of 2014?) I cut that to size and got out some pretty upholstery nails I had in the ole Craft Closet. I lined the vellum print up with the transferred image on the wood and hammered them nails! 

Lovely!

Beautiful but it still needed..something..

BAAA! Blurry! Dang it! Sorry. I have failed you with my crappy photography skills, dear Internets! Anyway, I love it. I like the twine--I super loved mixed media and it makes me happy to use paper, metal AND twine. 

So, Internets..blurry and upside down pictures aside, I'll let YOU decide if this pin was a success or a fail. Personally, I'm calling fail. I think if, like our friends over at Picklee, I just needed the outline that I was going to fill in this would be a win. But the vellum thing looks WAY better (you'll just have to trust me on that!) than the transfer in my opinion. I'd love to hear what you think!