Foiled Holly Jolly Holidays

Hello my fabulously creative friends!  How many of you have gotten started on holiday cards?  I know I have a ways to go with my list... HMMM... Well, hopefully today's technique will inspire you!

I love adding a bit of sparkle to my holiday cards... and foiling is a GREAT way to add an elegant shine to your projects! And I'm going to let you in on a little secret... You can foil the papers from both of the new LDRS Creative winter paper packs!!! (Holly Jolly Holidays  and  Arctic Snowfall)

Let me show you how!

 

LDRS Creative shopping list for this project...

Holly Jolly Holidays paper pack

Arctic Snowfall stamps

Tree Line stamp

Alloy ink

Olive Branch ink

Snowy Day die

Stamping Mask Paper

 

Other items needed for the technique:

Heat transfer foil

A foiling machine, or hot press laminating machine

 

Let me start by saying that not every paper will work for this technique. It completely depends on what type of ink was used to print the paper. The Holly Jolly Holidays paper pack and the Arctic Snowfall paper pack both work... beyond that, all I can say is try it and see...  little scraps of paper are great for testing!

The second thing to look at is the color of the ink... As you can see, the red striped paper foiled BEAUTIFULLY.... The plaid paper was a bit more hit and miss... from my testing, it seems like the darker/ more intense the ink color, the better it will foil.. (notice the navy stripes foiled great, the pink are patchy, and the light blue only worked a little..)  Again, test your paper so you know what to expect.

I loved how the red striped paper worked, so that's what I chose to use for my project.

Ok... now that we have that figured out, it's time to dive in! 

Step 1: Turn on your foiling machine/laminator... It needs to get nice and hot, so you might as well get it started while we do the prep work!

Step 2: Cut your chosen paper to the size that you need. 

 

Step 3: Cut a piece of foil slightly larger than our paper.

 

 

Step 4: Fold a piece of thin copy paper in half. Open the paper back up, and place your patterned paper on the  copy paper, pattern facing up. Lay the foil on top of the patterned paper with the colored side of the foil facing up. Fold the copy paper in half again so your patterned paper and foil are sandwiched between inside. 

Step 5: Without letting anything slide around in your sandwich, feed it into your foiling machine or laminator, fold side first.

 

Step 6: Let the machine pull it through... Once it comes out the other side, it will look something like this... Let it cool completely. (doesn't take long... maybe 30 seconds or so)

Step 7: Peel off the foil sheet...

It's that easy!  

You may notice that the foiling isn't absolutely perfect... I've found that any time I try to foil large areas, it ends up being slightly less than perfect... but I think it adds to the charm to see little specks of color peeking through in random places!

 

Step 8: finish your card...

I did some pretty simple masking and coloring for these foxes.. I'm absolutely loving these sweet foxes!!

As a finishing touch, I die cut the snowflake border and added it to the top with foam tape... I also added some glitter to the snow.  

Nice and simple, but looks super fancy!

I hope this inspires you to dive into some sparkly winter cards... If you do give this technique a try using LDRS Creative products I'd love to see it! You can share it in the LDRS Creative Facebook Group! We LOVE seeing the incredible projects you all make with our products!

If you are wanting more inspiration, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube!

See you soon!
Kassi