Wax Paper Image Transfer

by Megan Louise

I've seen these tutorials everywhere. A foolproof way to transfer an image into wood with your standard inkjet printer and wax paper. Honestly, I don't know why or how it took me so long to try it for myself!
I do a lot of woodburning, and lately I've tried transferring details and outlined to wood so that I can more accurately burn it. After trying tracing paper, sharpies, sicssors, and a letter opener, I figured I ought to give wax paper a shot. At least it's safer than trying to etch wood with a pair of sicssors!

wax paper image transfer on wood sign, crafts, how to, wall decor

The map on wax paper. The paper crunched a bit in the printer, so the whole eastern coast of Africa was rather smudged. Other than that, the image remained intact.

The transfer to wood. For this piece, I knew I wanted to draw the map out in gold. The wood was stained with Sherwin Williams's Mission Oak.

The final product! I used a Sharpie oil paint pen to trace the map outline.

I loved the transfer so much that I had to do another transfer. I had another piece of stained wood in the garage, so why not! I got this sweet 1890s ad from the Graphics Fairy. The lettering was too good to pass up. Since I was working with a 5"x18" piece of wood, I spliced the image into two separate images. I now have yet another piece of stained wood that's out drying!

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1 question

Cris on Jun 04, 2016
How do you do the transfer

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Liliana Wells on Oct 23, 2015
I have tried this, but it does not work for me. My husband, who is more technical than I am, also tried it three times. There is a faint image on the wax paper, barely visible. We tried printing it on paper again thinking the printer may not be working. Here again the image is very faint. My husband thinks the print heads are now damaged. The first image on paper had been sharp. Any ideas to try? Thanks

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- Megan Louise on Oct 23, 2015
  The image will show up rather faint on the wax paper since the ink is only sitting on the wax (the ink isn't absorbed like it would be with standard paper). on wax paper, the image won't be identical to an image on the screen- that's the only thing I can think of. This process works best with images that don't have a lot of black in them.
  
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Liliana Wells on Oct 23, 2015
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I don't think the image has a lot of black. Of course, I reversed it before attempting printing.

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