A Little More Glitter and Foil

While watching the Jennifer McGuire's video on using gilding flakes, and how she used a "hello" die cut on a piece of sticky paper before adding the flakes, it occurred to me that possibly peel-off stickers would also work.

My gilding flakes haven't arrived yet, but I thought I would try attaching a sticker to some glitter paper and coloring the inside design (coloring on glitter paper was taught in an earlier class).  I grabbed a sheet of stickers (Dazzles Vintage Cars Stickers from Hot off the Press), and stuck it on a small piece leftover silver glitter paper.  It stuck on very well, after a little burnishing, and then I colored in the car body with my Copics.  The color dried much lighter than it went on, so I had to go over the red again with a darker red, because the first time the card turned out pink.

I then foiled another Foil Mates background. I had a lot of trouble with that, first trying one foil that didn't melt to the background, even doing it a couple of times.  Then I tried another foil, to see if a different brand would work better.  Still nothing, so cut another sheet of the background to try that.  Nothing.  Then I tried it again, this time adding an additional sheet of card stock in the stack before running it through the laminator.  Did better, so I ran it through again.  Finally, success!  I don't know what the problem was, didn't have any trouble earlier in the week when I did it.  When I used the leftover silver foil on a sheet of toner card, I had to do it three times, and there were still little spots that didn't take the foil.  I put the sentiment over the worst of it.

All in all, I was pleased with how the card came out.  I liked the idea of using the stickers, even though I'm not a big fan of fussy cutting, and I think it turned out pretty well. Sorry abut the photo, it was the best one, even though I am semi-reflected in the background.

Sparkle & Shine Day 2--More cards!

I received my order for Deco Foil Toner Sheets and Gina K. Designs Foil-mates today. I wanted to test them out and see if I liked them.

They worked very well, and I didn't have any problems using them.  I started off by cutting one of the Elegant Damask sheets into card front size, cut my Minc Blue Foil into a 6 by 5 inch section, and then laid them in my folded copy paper carrier.  Ran it through the laminating machine with no problem.  Fast and easy, and turned out very well.  I then used a smaller piece of the foil and a greeting from the Foil-Mates Birthday Essentials, ran that through the same way, and that also went off without a hitch.

The reflection of the foil made it hard to get a good photo.   It is a pretty bright blue on both the sentiment and card front.

I then followed Gina K."s suggestion, and used the left over foil from the card front on a 3.75 x 5 inch piece of toner sheet.  That turned out pretty well, except when it went through the laminating machine, there were streaks on from where the foil wrinkled going through.  I carefully smoothed the foil out a little, and ran it through again, and it came out much better.  The only disappointment I had is that there isn't very much contrast between the black of the toner sheet, and the blue color foil in real life, and looks better in the photo. 


So, generally, I was happy with how well the toner sheets worked, and how well the Gina K. Designs Foil-Mates worked.  Will I order them again?  Probably not the birthday greetings, as I like to use a variety of greetings, depending on the card, and for whom I'm making the card.  That being said, the birthday greetings included are very nice, and they are extremely easy to use.The Elegant Damasks are a maybe.  They make lovely card fronts, and will probably look great in a variety of different colored foils.  But I'm not sure how many cards I would make before getting bored with the design.

As for the toner sheets, I'm not sure.  It seems like a good idea to use the leftover sheets from foiling something else, and the card front came out nice when I tried it.  I guess I just wish toner came in white instead of black.  You can add a different color to white, and change up the look, but black is pretty much always going to be black.