Friday, October 5, 2018

Using Foil with A Colorful Life Designs Stencils


Hello!  Happy Friday!

Today I'm sharing a few examples of how I used with my A Colorful Life Designs stencils with Decofoil Transfer Gel and a heat laminator to add foil to my stencilled patterns.

Foil can add so much pizazz to a card, whether as a background or a focal image, and with soooo many color and patterns of foil available, that it really can give you endless opportunities with your stencils.  I like to prep several cardstock panels with transfer gel when I have my supplies out, always using white cardstock.  It takes a few hours for the transfer gel to dry and turn clear and glossy before you can foil it, so it's nice to have several drying at once and foil them all in one sitting as well.  After they are foiled, it's easy to add color with ink later to match whatever project you need it for.  The shiny foil is well adhered, so there's little chance of it rubbing off!

Today I used the Falling Stars stencil with Decofoil Transfer Gel and Silver Shattered Glass Decofoil to create this background.  I use the back of my MISTI as a surface, protecting it with a craft sheet, then use the magnetic base of the MISTI and my bar magnets to hold my stencil in place.  I applied a thin layer of Transfer Gel to the stencil with a palette knife, smoothing and removing excess with a rubber squeegee.  Then I let the gel dry completely.  (make sure you wash your stencil and tools relatively quickly after you finish applying the gel!)  

Once my transfer gel was completely dry, I added a piece of foil, just slightly larger than the gel area, shiny side up, over my panel and covered with a protective folder (I used a folded piece of thin copy paper), and ran it through my Mini Minc laminator.  After foiling on a white card panel, I inked over the top of the foil with Dusty Concord and Black Soot Distress Oxide inks.  I used a velvety soft brush to do my inking.  

I turned this foiled and inked Falling Stars panel into a background for this card, adding the  faintly watercolored diecut image from Concord & 9th's City Stacks set.




I used the Triple Stripes stencil for the following card, but masked off two-thirds of it with 3M 2" Post-it Tape, so I could create just a single column of stripes.  I foiled the with Therm-O-web/Gina K. Designs' Grass Green Fancy Foil.  I decided that the single column of stripes when viewed horizontally reminded me of birthday candles, so I added flames with Copic markers and a sentiment from Brutus Monroe.  My foiled stencil thus became the focal image of this card.



My third foiled panel used the Honeycomb Fade stencil once again as a background.  This time, I foiled with red foil, I inked the panel with Red Velvet ink to create a shiny holiday background for this Christmas card.  I used the poinsettia from Perfect Poinsettia stamp set, stamping the two detailed layers both with Reverse Confetti's Mist ink to create the white flower before hand trimming the petals out, and then added the sentiment from Festive Foliage in matching Red Velvet ink to complete the card.



If you've never tried using foil with your stencils before, I have a quick 5 minute video of the process below.  Enjoy!


Have a great weekend!

3 comments:

  1. All your cards are amazing Chris! I think you've found a new go-to! Foiling! Love this!

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  2. Your cards are beautiful!!! Love this technique and you do it soooo well. Thank you for sharing!

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