Capturing your Impression

Whether you are capturing a special moment in time or preserving a memory, creating your extra special Heirloom Impression Kit necklace is quick, simple and easy to achieve. This step-by-step guide will take you through the process of preparing, impressing and returning the wax to our casting team.

Contents

1. Inside your kit
2. Preparing your wax
3. Imprinting your impression
4. Doube-sided impression
5. Returning your wax
6. Completing an online submission
7. Faint impressions
8. Your privacy

Inside your Kit

First, let's talk about what you will receive inside your Heirloom Impression Kit.

The most important components are annotated above. Here, we feature:

• Basic instructional guide
• Free return mailing bag (It's 100% recycled and biodegradable ♻️)
• Clear impression template - used to push your wax into
• A MAIN secure impression tin - for your best impression wax
• A SPARE secure impression tin - return up to 2 backup waxes
• 3x formable heirloom waxes

Preparing your Wax

You can prepare your wax a number of ways, but there are a few things to look out for.

🥶 If it's cold in the room, the wax will need to warm up to a mild room temperature to ensure it is responsive and formable enough to capture a detailed impression.

🥵 If it is hot, you might need to cool the wax and firm it up to avoid our specially formulated wax separating or becoming too sticky to work with.

We find the best method of getting your heirloom formable wax to the right temperature is to get some tepid water. Not a cold tap, but not hot either - the temperature that Goldilocks would look for.

Leave it in there for 5-10 minutes to allow the wax to fully embrace the surrounding temperature.

Imprinting your Impression

Once your wax is prepared, take it out of the water and place it in the centre of one of your template squares. Don't worry about drying the wax, it's going to get wet again later anyway.

When you are ready to push your digit into the wax, dip your finger in the water before slowly pushing down on the wax.

Remember - we are going to cast your best wax impression as is. This means the shape and thickness of your wax impression is what the shape and thickness of your pendant will be. Your wax will be returned the same (except in solid precious metal, of course).

Double-sided Impressions

These impressions require a slightly different approach. As both sides are being imprinted, you will not use the clear template at any stage when impressing or returning your wax to us.

To achieve a double-sided impression, it's best to push into the wax at the same time. Following a similar guide to the previous step, push into the wax at the same time from either side.

Think the cover of E.T. (the movie). Get it? Good! 👽👉👈

Returning your Wax

You're happy. You have a selection of impression waxes that you are ready to return to us for casting. Fantastic!!

The first step is deciding which wax is going to be your MAIN impression (i.e. your favourite). The others will be returned together in your SPARES tin.

To pack up and return your impressions for casting, carefully:

1. Cut along the lines of the template to individually divide each impression.
2. Put some clean tap water into your tin (No more than half full, please).
3. Drop your main wax face down into one tin. Drop the spare(s) in the other tin together.
4. Tightly seal the screw top lids as far as much as you can to avoid any water leaking out 💧
5. Put all of your tightened tins into the freepost return mailing bag, and seal along the printed line.

You're nearly done. Just one final step...

Complete an Online Submission

This is a mega-important step! We receive a lot of Heirloom Impressions every day. Our online wax return form links up to our bigger system that manages everything from tracking, notifications, production and more! It allows you to tell us exactly how we are to process your heirloom wax and where we should return it to upon completion.

Please do not skip this step, otherwise we will not be able to proceed with your submission.

If you have never done this before, follow these quick simple steps:

1. Head to castcreate.com
2. Create a new account (this account is different from the one you may have created when buying the kit).

3. Link your Heirloom Impression Kit to your account by entering your 'Unique Kit ID'.

   (You will find this on your tin and on your return envelope).

4. Finally, click 'New Submission' (castcreate.com/create) at the top of the page to start your new jewellery submission.

If this isn't your first time, simply head back to castcreate.com, login and complete a new casting submission.

Simple 🙂

Faint Impressions

If you have inspected your waxes under a bright light (i.e. a desk light) and can not see a clear detailed impression (i.e. a fingerprint), it's highly likely that there will not be an impression in your completed casting.

This is very common if you are trying to capture lighter impressions such as from a newborn or elderly fingers. In cases like this, it may only be possible to capture a partial impression.

As an alternative to capturing a fingerprint, we find it extremely popular to capture the simple indentation of a tiny digit to represent the scale or shape of their finger. You can even capture the nailbed or anything that has a clearer texture.

The decision is completely yours. Our priority is making sure that you receive a pendant that is special and meaningful to you.

Privacy Concerns?

Worried about privacy... we get it! The caveat with creating extra-personal meaningful jewellery, is we require personal meaningful impressions to do it. But don't worry - you're in safe hands. We take your personal privacy extremely seriously and have multiple safeguards and policies in place to ensure we keep your impressions securely and no longer than necessary.

Check out our detailed guide on privacy in 'related articles' or here.