Valentine's Card...with Foil!

Hello all! I have a quick share today of a card I made using a new-to-me technique: foiling! Foil has been super trendy for at least a year now - maybe two - but it's taken me a while to jump on this particular bandwagon. I just wasn't a huge fan of it at first. Recently, however, there have been a lot of new products designed so that you can add your own foil to projects like, for instance, the Minc machine. I'd been contemplating buying this machine more and more lately as they came out with cool products to use with it that mean you don't have to worry about printing things in toner in order to have fun with it. When my local stamp store, Impress, offered a class showing different foil techniques, I decided to give it a whirl in the hopes that the class would help me cement my feelings about foil, and the Minc, once and for all. In the end, it definitely did; I fell completely in love!! =) I ended up buying the machine and some accessories. I haven't had time to play with it at home yet, but I'm hoping to have some projects (or at least experiments =P) to share soon. One of the techniques in class involved using foil with double sided adhesive and die-cuts so that you could have foiled die-cuts without needing a machine at all! I loved this technique and tried it almost as soon as I got home. The card I have today is the result.

When I was at Impress for the class I picked up this beautiful Basic Grey paper pad (why, oh why have they stopped making patterned paper?? =..(  ) and the foil-patterned washi tape in addition to my foiling supplies.  The butterfly die and XO stamp are both from Simon Says Stamp.

This foiling technique uses some double-sided adhesive made for using with foil. I think it's really the same as any other foam adhesive except that it comes in sheets and is thin enough to use with wafer thin dies. You just cut your die cut, remove the top protective sheet from the adhesive, lay your foil down and rub it into the die cut with your fingers. Like all foiling techniques there is a little magic moment when you remove the foil sheet and a beautiful foiled creation is left. =) The results for this technique aren't as smooth as when you use toner with the Minc or a laminator, but it is still shiny and beautiful, and less of an investment if you don't want to buy fancy equipment.

Foil is notoriously difficult to photograph, but I managed to get this fairly nice close up where you can see the true color of the foil. I used the gorgeous rose gold color from Therm-O-Web. 

Thanks so much for looking today. I would definitely recommend trying this technique...but only if you are prepared to become completely hooked! =) 

I will see you Sunday with a Valentine's Day card made with my February Counterfeit Kit! 

*~M~*