I love to work with all sizes of gemstones.  I like to decorate items with them as well as use them to make jewelry.  Trying to place them on an object can be tricky unless you have  a little help.  I’ve tried using tweezers, but the gems like to jump out of them.  Then I found the QuickStik Pick up tool, which was purchased at Joann Fabrics in their scrapbook department.  They aren’t cheap.  I paid $7.00 for mine, although I use it a lot.  If you don’t want to spend that much money for something that you may not use very often, I have a do-it-yourself solution.  It works as well as the QuickStik & you probably have everything you need to make it.

What is it?  It’s a wax stick.  Simple to make anytime you need it & probably won’t cost you a cent to make.

This is what you’ll need:

A candle & a toothpick.

Light a candle, and dip the end of it into the melted wax.

Remove the toothpick from the melted wax quickly.  Give it a second to harden.  Keep dipping the end of the toothpick into the melted wax quickly.  It’s a little time consuming, but worth the savings.

This is a toothpick dipped into the wax about 30 times.

Once it’s done, you can use it to pick up the tiniest gemstones and easily place it where you want it.

All it takes is the gentlest touch of the wax stick on the gemstone to pick it up.

That’s all there is to it, and you’ve just saved yourself $7.00!

Happy Creating everyone!