Hand Cancelling and Calligraphy

Thanks for the Micro Glaze suggestion. We're having calligraphy, so that will be good to have. Thanks!

Where did you get the wax for your wax seal?? Did you get the glue gun kind from Michaels, how did it work out for you?

I would have loved to have done wax seals on our invitations but it would push the width up over into the next price bracket which didn't seem worth it. I got some wax seal style stickers on ebay which are quite nice so will use those instead. Not quite the same effect, but they'll do!

Micro glaze... will def look into that. I am hand writing all mine in fancy schmancy font.

Can you just write in small letters "Please hand cancel" on the envelopes and they'll do that for you?

Pieces, you're welcome! I got the wax seals from letterseals.com. They are faux wax but look real. I went that route because I am too clumsy to mess around with hot wax and I always heard they couldn't stand up to mailing anyway. These are self stick and pliable. I thought they'd do better if the invites absolutely had to go through a machine.

@Kristen, here in Philadelphia there is only ONE post office that offer hand cancelling. I would call to see if your local post office does it. You usually have to bring them into the office as opposed to putting them in the box.

Jemma, I bet the stickers look great! That's a smart alternative.

@ Monica, thanks. We bought a wax seal, just the seal without the wax, so I've been trying to find some easy to work with wax. Wish I had went your route.

Kristen, it really all depends. I went to my same post office the day before to get more stamps and I asked about hand canceling. I was told they could do one or two but they have to send the rest to the main post office and it might get done, it might not. This morning, I got lucky. Empty post office, different clerk in a better mood.

What is hand cancelling?

Rustic, it's when a postal clerk uses a hand stamp to cancel or make unusable the stamps on your piece of mail. This is usually done by machine but if the mail is thick or has stuff on it...wax seals or whatever...it can mess it up. Hand canceling prevents your mail from having to go through the machine.

Rusticbride - what Monica said... it's the postage mark on your envelope.

I didn't know that some post offices didn't do hand cancelling? When I had mine done, I went to one of the smaller area post offices that isn't as busy (and the people there always seem happier! lol) and asked them to do it when they had time.

It does depend on how busy of a post office you go to if they will be kind enough to hand cancel your envelopes for you. Sometimes if you ask they will give you the stamp and pad and allow you to stamp them yourself.

Piecesofadream - instead of using sealing wax try hot glue. They now sell colored hot glue for this use. It is more pliable than wax and therefore with stands mailing better.

I did faux wax seals on the ribbon for our invites, used a white glitter hot glue. Looks like wax, super easy to work with, and I made mine self adhesive so it couldn't just fall off, using glue dots! I just made all the seals on baking parchment paper.