How Not to Use Hot Foil Transfer Sheets When Laminating

Do you know how to #hotfoil?
Here’s how not to use Foil Transfer Papers
while laminating. See  our good, bad and ugly footnotes.

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You won’t believe this.

I can hardly believe it myself.

I have been crafting forever,

and as much as Kim loves glitz and glitter,

we have never heat foiled anything.

I have used foils with adhesive backing you cut with the Cricut,

but never have I ever done #hotfoil paper crafts with a laminator.

This week, my friends,

that changed.

We bit the bullet on laminating foil onto cards,

and we want to tell you what we’ve learned so far.

 

If you want the Cliff Notes version of this tutorial,
scroll right on down to the bottom of the post
for printable directions.

 

I ordered the Deco Foil transfer sheets in metallic colors from Amazon. There are affiliate links in this post.

(No one is paying me for my story, this is strictly a learning experience for me.)

The colors in this pack are super elegant. Gold, Rose Gold, Copper, Silver, Pewter and Black.

(Pewter!! Ahh. What will I make with that??)

I bought a laminator, sort of like this one. I couldn’t find the exact one I have, but I paid about the same for mine as this one. So far I’m happy with it. If there’s any issues, they’re on my part, trying to learn how to use it.

I bought the laminator to make the tab dividers for our recipe albums, and it does an amazing job with that.

 

 

 

Study Hot-Foiling 101

I watched and read a few tutorials on gold foiling,

like this one. Since I was going to make 30 graduation party invitations, I chose to learn the laminating method.

Today’s project is one of my practice projects.

Because obviously, if I was making a product for my friend it had to be done right,

and I needed to learn.

When a sweet 8th grade graduate wants glitzy gold foil on her invitation,

we cave. We did them as her grad gift.

 

 

Practice Project: How to Foil a Printable

Supplies:

• a printable printed on a laser printer
• Deco foil transfer sheets
• Laminator, with at least a 9″ wide feeding slot for printer size paper
• Scrap paper to make a “sandwich”
• Scissors, pencil (optional)

 

 

Directions:

1. Plug your laminator in to heat up. It takes awhile. My laminator has an on/off switch, so just because I plug it in doesn’t mean it will heat up. Ask me why I mention this. The switch happens to be on the back of my particular machine, and it took me awhile to find it. After waiting and waiting for heat that didn’t happen.
2. Decide which parts of the printable you want to foil.
3. Place the foil transfer sheet over that area. Cut off any foil that overlaps design parts you don’t want to foil.
4. When your foil is situated, carefully cover it with another same size sheet of printer paper. Take care not to move the foil as you cover it. This is your “sandwich.”
5. Carefully move your sandwich to the laminator entrance and let it roll. This is when you start humming and tapping your fingers on the desk. It takes a while to feed through. There’s only one speed on my laminator, and that is low gear, uphill, spinning-in-sand slow.
6. Take off the sandwich cover, remove the foil, and voila!! Be amazed! You have permission to grab a little’s hand and dance around the house at this point. Then go out on the front porch and wave your project at the neighbors as they drive by. (But don’t scare the nesting mama bird out of the planter, like we did.)

 

 

Footnotes (The Good, The Bad, The Ugly):

1. UGLY: Don’t reuse the “sandwich” cover paper, as tempting as it is. When I made the cards and reused the paper I discovered that any ink not covered with foil transferred to the cover paper. Faintly, but enough for that ink to transfer back to the card, in the wrong places, of course. I only ruined about 5 cards trying this. (I may have or may not have forgotten which side of the cover paper I had used, because I used each side one time.)

   

2. BAD: Be sure the color you are transferring is right side up. There are two sides to the foil, and the color you want showing on your project needs to be right side up on your printable as you laminate. It took me 3 tries to realize this. You would think the gold should be next to the print, right? Wrong.
3. GOOD: You can do foiling without a laminator. Look for a tutorial for using Deco Foil with ink stamping and transfer gel.
4. AMAZING: When the stars line up and the sandwich is made correctly and the project comes through the laminator looking like pure gold!!

 

 

 

Hot Foil Printable Directions: