Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Foiled Christmas Cards

by Julie Schinkel on Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Foiled Christmas Cards

#artdecocreations #couturecreationsaus #ultimatecrafts

Hi everyone! It's Julie here back on the blog today sharing some clean and simple Christmas cards using the GoPress & Foil Machine from Couture Creations.

To start I've taken the Anna Griffin Christmas Tree hotfoil stamp and placed it onto my GoPress & Foil Machine to heat up.

I've cut down some silver mirror finish hotfoil and placed this on top of the hot foil stamp shiny/coloured side down. A good tip to remember with your foils is to think of the dull grey side as the "adhesive" side - it adheres to what you are foiling. Another good tip is to cut each corner of the foil to avoid the whole piece adhering to your project.

Everyone's die cutting machines are caliberated differently so you'll have to play around with shims to see how many or how thick you'll need them to get a good result. In this case, a shim wasn't required but I have had to use shims for other hot foil stamps. Have a play with your machine to find out what works for you the best. Another tip is hang on to your scrap foil. I'll show you a way to use up some of those scraps plus how to use the negative image in a future tutorial.

I decided to challenge myself and foil the sentiment directly to the inside of the card. It does leave a slight impression on the front but you won't see it under the tree panel. To do this, place your sentiment hot foil stamp in the centre of your GoPress & Foil machine and cover with foil. Again, it is really important to trim the corners to prevent the foil adhering to your card. For this tutorial I'm using a white A6 card from Couture Creations.

Fold your card inside out and place the sentiment side over the foil and stamp, centred as shown. Gently close the lid whilst holding the card in place. It's sounds tricky but it does work.

This is the result!

Next I've adhered some Diecut'N Bond tape to white cardstock and cut into strips approximately 1/3 inch. You'll need two strips per card. For this tutorial I made four cards so I needed eight strips.

Cut down your foiled Christmas tree to the size of your A6 card.

Adhere a sticky strip of cardstock to the back of the foiled tree card leaving at least 1/4 inch exposed.

Take a scrap piece of foil and press onto the sticky strip as shown in the photo. This is a great way to create a faux layer and match the silver to your foiled image.

To finish, I've added a few matching 2mm gemstones on the 'berries' in the foil stamp pattern and also on the "i" of the sentiment inside. The tree panel was adhered to the front of the card with foam tape for some dimension. This is what the finished card looks like.

I've replicated the card in different colours and changed the sentiment for some variation, keeping the sentiment the same colour as the card front. I decided to stick with the traditional Christmas colours for this tutorial but you can use any or as many colours as you like. It's great for those of you who like to mass produce Christmas cards.