I'm very excited to bring this tutorial to you today as I've been a foiling-mad woman for quite a while now! I've recorded a video which shows you how to foil your own prints. I've also covered foiling stickers and how you can layer foiling on top of inkjet printed backgrounds. I compare the different foils and give tips on the best printers and card.
To help get you started, I'm giving away a bumper pack of free printable designs - links at the bottom of this post.
To help get you started, I'm giving away a bumper pack of free printable designs - links at the bottom of this post.
Why A Laser Printout?
Laser printers don’t use water soluable ink, instead they use tiny granules of black plastic called toner. Laser printers uses static electricity to arrange the toner onto the page and then the hot rollers melt it and fuse it to the paper. If we heat the page again, the toner will melt and become a perfectly precise glue that the foil will stick to. Any parts of the paper that are white stay white, whereas anything printed black will be covered with foil.
Bee image by Nic Squirrell https://www.silhouettedesignstore.com/view-shape/148628
Inkjet Printouts Won't Work, but that can be useful
Inkjet printers will not work, but the fact that they aren't reactive can be used to our advantage. We can print any design, using black or coloured inks as a background, safe in the knowledge that the foils won't stick to them. We can then take the inkjet printout and run it through the laser printer, this time printing the design that we want foiled.
Inkjet printed background stripes with laser printed and foiled centre
This is marble patterned wrapping paper, but inkjet printed background would also work.
Printer Tips
Mono laser printers that only print in black and white are better than colour ones as apparently the formulation of the black toner is different. I originally bought a Canon printer from John Lewis but had to return it as it kept getting paper jams. In the end I bought a Samsung MD3220ND from Printerland, currently £117.58 as it was the only printer I could find under £500 that could take cardstock up to 220gsm.
If you don't want to buy a laser printer, you can get your local print shop or chain such as Staples to print you copies. Photocopiers also use toner if you have access to one.
If you don't want to buy a laser printer, you can get your local print shop or chain such as Staples to print you copies. Photocopiers also use toner if you have access to one.
Foiling Sheets
The Minc Rose Gold foil comes in a roll which is handy. I bought mine from Amazon UK for £7.37 and it shipped from America (there is no import taxes as the value is under the threshold).
The Deco Foil Rose Gold foil comes in 6 by 12 inch sheets of 5 or 20. The 5 sheet tube is £6.42 and comes with free next day delivery if you have Prime. The larger pack of 20 is £7.16 but ships from America, also no import tax.
Patsy May, a UK company sell 15m rolls of metallic foil in widths of 10, 20 and 30cm for £6, £10 and £15 respectively. They also sell holographic and patterned foils in the same sizes and prices. The postage is £2.70, but even adding this, these foils work out the cheapest.
My favourite is the Deco Foil, but in the video, the Patsy May foils actually performed really well on stickers.
My favourite is the Deco Foil, but in the video, the Patsy May foils actually performed really well on stickers.
Card and Paper
My favourite white card to use is Color Copy by Mondi, its bright white and super smooth, especially formulated for laser printers but also works well with inkjet for those layered looks.
Mondi Color Copy A4 200gsm £13.11 from Amazon with free Prime delivery.
I also like the super smooth card from Anna Marie Designs which is £5.99 for 50 sheets.
I'm a massive fan of an innovative paper from Italy called The Tube, sold by Paperstory, both for foiling and for paper cutting. It has a latex like finish and 10 sheets are £3.10. There are a variety of colours, my favourite are the matte black, petrol blue and graphite grey.
I'm a massive fan of an innovative paper from Italy called The Tube, sold by Paperstory, both for foiling and for paper cutting. It has a latex like finish and 10 sheets are £3.10. There are a variety of colours, my favourite are the matte black, petrol blue and graphite grey.
Matte Black 'The Tube' paper from Paperstory. Image #4051032 from Vectorstock
Tip For Silhouette Users when Foiling Stickers
Stickers look great foiled, I particularly like to make foiled return address labels.
Foiled stickers cut with a Silhouette Cameo, but circle punches can also be used.
For those with Silhouette Cameo cutting machines, the Cameo 3 having two blades is great for stickers. I do a light kiss cut which cuts the circles but not the backing paper (blade 1 force 5) using the left blade. It then automatically moves on to cut with more force (blade 2 force 27) through the full sheet using the right blade. Once you've cut the stickers and removed the registration marks, then you can foil as normal.
How to kiss cut then trim the sticker sheets in a single pass using the cut by line option.
FREEBIES!
Please feel free to download and use the following PDF printable freebies that I have designed (personal use only). I've also included SVG and Silhouette Studio Compatible formats (GSD) if you'd rather cut the designs instead of foil them. The PDFs are black and white, I've just shown them in gold to help envisage the final product. Click on the images to open the download links
Fool For Love font https://mistifonts.com/fool-for-love/ Arsenale White font https://www.dafont.com/arsenale-white.font
Ostrich Sans font https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/ostrich-sans
Icons created by Agne Alesiute and kindly shared under Creative Commons licence. https://thenounproject.com/grrrauf/collection/origami-animals/
Icons made by Freepik and kindly shared under creative commons licence https://www.flaticon.com/pack/animal-kingdom
I Love Glitter font by Misti Fonts http://mistifonts.com/i-love-glitter/
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