Foiling with an iron

Hello all!

My last post was about foiling.

I wrote at the end of the post that I would try using

a household iron to foil some embellishments 

and report back on how that worked.

Here is that review.

I chose 2 of the pieces from the Heidi Swapp assortment

that I used in my other post.

I used the same foils as I did with my last post

when I used the laminator.

I set the iron on the hottest setting WITHOUT steam.

I applied quite a bit of pressure on the iron, as much

as I could muster for about 15 seconds.

Here is the result with the Heidi Swapp foil.

It worked fair, there were some spots that the foiling 

did not stick and you can see that the heat from the iron 

kind of 'warped' the rest of the foil.

I used the same process with the Color Foil piece.

The results weren't quite as good.

But the foil didn't become warped at all.

You can see what was left behind rather than sticking to the

black area of the embellishment.

Now I don't know if I had used more pressure or longer

heating time, if it would have done better,

but there are the results.

Here, up closer you can see where the foil didn't stick

and here as well.

My conclusion,

it is possible to use a household iron, but the results isn't

near as good as using the laminator.

Could I have 'fixed' the problem by adding more foil

and ironing again?

Probably, but I didn't try that.

I'll just use my laminator.

Now I'm wondering if the foil would do well in my heat

press, but I won't be heating it up just to give it a try.

Maybe when I've got that baby fired up again, I'll try it.

My guess is that it will work better than the iron,

only because it has good pressure, but would it ruin the

other areas of the foil?

That's the question.

If I give it a try, I'll write about it in a future post.

Thanks for stopping in today,

hope this 'review' helps you in some way.

Let me know if you give foiling a try and how 

it works out for you.

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Foiling

Hello craft lovers!

Have you tried foiling yet?

I decided to jump on the bandwagon and give it a try.

I already have a laminator, so that covers the most expensive

part of this latest trend.

The foil can be a little pricey, but I found some on clearance at

Michael's, then I found some other supplies on clearance and 

that made me do a happy dance.

Here are some of the basics for foiling.

Heidi Swapp has these sets of embellishments for foiling.

I usually wouldn't buy something like this,

but since they were on clearance for $1.29 I thought I'd

give them a try.

Here are all the pieces I got in that little pack.

Where ever you see black, it is toner and the foil will stick to 

it when put through the laminator.

There is a "craft laminator" called a Minc that is specifically 

made for this technique, but I'm pretty sure any laminator will do.

The biggest thing is to be sure whatever you are foiling

has toner on it.

It will NOT work if you try to foil anything from an ink jet printer.

You MUST use a laser printer if you are making your own

pieces to foil. If you don't have a laser printer, like me, you 

can have things printed at a copy store, such as Office Max.

Just remember it must be TONER for the foil to stick.

While looking for places online to purchase 

"toner reactive foil" my friend and I found

ColorFoils.com

I found that they offered a free sampling of their foils,

and requested them.

They sent me a great variety of  20 foils to try out.

I thought I'd see if there was any differences between the

Heidi Swapp foil and the Color Foils foil.

I chose 2 of the embellishments from the Heidi Swapp 

packet that I purchased.

I cut off a piece of the Heidi Swapp foil as the sheet

was too wide to fit both pieces into my carrier.

The right is the Color Foil piece in red.

the left is a piece of pink from Heidi Swapp.

Next the carrier is sent through the laminator.

Be sure it is warmed up.

If you haven't used a laminator before,

you simply place the carrier into the machine, it

'grabs' onto it and pulls it through.

My laminator runs from the front to the back,

the carrier goes through the machine and 

exits the back.

Here is what I found when it came out the back of the

laminator.  You can see that the foil shifted on the left.

This was partly my fault, I cut the piece narrow, but large enough

to cover the embellishment, but didn't give it much

extra. The other problem was that the Heidi Swapp foil

comes rolled up in a tube.  when you try to lay it flat, 

it tends to roll up, guess I didn't have it laying flat when I closed

the carrier, so be aware of this.

As you can see, the entire piece wasn't covered.

This isn't a problem though.

The part that was covered came out perfect.

Here is the piece that I used the Color Foil sheet on.

As you can see it came our beautifully.

Anything left on that sheet can be used for another project.

Now to fix my other piece.

All I needed to do was cover the black area with the foil

and run it through the laminator again.

Here is a close up of the red Color Foil piece.

You can see it came out beautifully.

This is permanent and doesn't peel or scratch off.

Once I ran this through a second time, it was 

ready to be used on a project.

The only problem I found was you can see where the foil 

overlapped at the bottom of the piece.

When I put it back through the laminator,

it left a kind of imprint where the foil had already

been removed from the sheet.

It isn't really all that obvious when you look at it 

in real life, but at the right angle it can be seen.

In the future, I just wouldn't overlap it.

All in all, I think both the foils worked great.

I did prefer the finish on the Color Foil piece.

Not that there was anything wrong with the other

one, the finish was just a bit smoother.

I will have to play around with it more to see if

I find that I prefer it on a whole, or if it just

happened to be this color, or possibly that it had run 

one through the laminator twice.

If you haven't tried foiling yet, give it a try.

It really can add a bit of something special to a project.

I've read that you can do this with a household iron,

but you do need to use a lot of  pressure to get a good 

results. I'll give it a try and post my results in the near 

future.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you'll give

foiling a try.

Let me know how it works out for you, I'd love to

see what you make.

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Kindle covers

Hi all!

Are y'all staying warm?

We are having an arctic blast in my area

right now.  The wind chill is predicted to get

to -40* tonight, so I'll be bundled up.

Hopefully I'll have some crafty time while it's

cold outside.

Here is what I did last night.

3 of my Greats got Kindle Fires for Christmas

from their Grandma and Grandpa.

My sister in law asked if it was possible to 

"put their names on with that stuff you do" 

on the covers she bought for them.

So I said sure, I could put some vinyl on them.

When I saw the kids the other day I asked them what

they would like on them,

Sebastian was all for some Star Wars.

The other 2 didn't have an idea.

I got these cut files from one of the groups I'm in 

on Facebook.

He does love his Star Wars and this was perfect for him.

My sis in law told me that Oliver loves Sponge Bob.

When I found this cut file on Facebook, I knew it would 

be perfect for the O in his name.

He loved it!

As for Sami, she would like something cute,

but all the "cute" things looked a little too young

for an 8 yr old.

I came across this Tinkerbell silhouette in that same

Facebook group and layered the black on top of purple.

She loved it, perfect for their visit to Disney.

All in all, I think they turned out great and the kids

all loved them.  They called me to thank me as soon

as they were given to them.

One other thing that I added to each one was their 

mother's phone number on the inside, just in case

they get lost.  Hopefully someone will be kind enough to 

call if they find it, well hopefully they won't get lost,

but just in case......

Thanks for stopping by today.

I hope you are having a crafty day.

Stay warm and have fun!

Molly's coat

Hello blog friends!

Today I'm going to show you the cutest dog ever.

This is our little Molly

She is wearing her brand new coat that my sister in law,

Lynne, made for her.

You can see that Lynne is quite talented.

Here are a couple more pictures of the details on the coat.

Check out that adorable collar and bow.

Here is a picture of the back or top of the coat.

Love that little belt!

It goes on easy, closing with velcro around her neck

and her belly.

Is that just the sweetest thing ever or what?

Thanks Lynne, we love it!

So glad y'all stopped in today,

I hope you'll stop again soon.

In the mean time, stay warm.

Lego Card

Hi all!

Today I have a card that I made for my 

'great nephew' Anthony.

It was for his 7th birthday party and I struggle with 

boy cards. I was hemming and hawing about what to

do for his card.

He loves Star Wars and Mine Craft,

but nothing was clicking.

Someone said, 

"I have a picture here of Star Wars Legos,

you could use it on the card"

That did it, Legos!  of course!  He LOVES Legos.

It really was very simple to make,

cut 1" strips of paper and punch out circles,

then put them on the strips with foam tape.

Once the idea formed in my mind, 

it all came together pretty easily.

Here is a close up of the "Legos" where they show up 

a bit better.

I thought they turned out really great.

The "Happy Birthday" was stamped

in Versa Fine Black Onyx ink.

I love the bright colors and thought they were perfect for 

a 7 yr old boy.

So next time you need a boy card, think Legos,

after all who doesn't love Legos?

Thanks for stopping in today.

I hope to see you again soon.

Keep crafting! 

Dress Card

Hello blog friends!

Today I'm showing you a card I made for my 

Godchild, Andrea.

Andrea turned 4 the other day and there was a 

party on Sunday.

She is a very girlie girl and loves her dress up 

clothes and her Barbies.

I thought this card turned out perfect for her.

I already had a pattern that I had created for 

another project for the bodice of the dress,

so I traced that onto some card stock and cut it out.

For the skirt, I used a coffee filter.

I simply folded it a few times until it was the

size I needed, folded over the point 

that was the center of the filter,

wrapped it around the bodice and 

used ATG tape to adhere it.

I cut a scallop along the bottom and used

a gold pen to make dashes around the skirt to 

finish it off.

The 'belt' is some twisted cording/beading that

I had in my stash.

I had picked up a paper stack around Christmas

time for a very reasonably price, that was all 

gold foiled papers, the background paper is from that

stack, I don't remember the company name on it, but I 

picked it up at Michael's

The "Happy Birthday" is 

heat embossed with WOW

gold glitter embossing powder.

I think the card was a big hit,

I love how it turned out.

My niece said it was perfect for Andrea.

Thanks for stopping by today,

hope you will come again soon.

Until then, Happy Crafting!