Foil Printing the cheap (er) and cheerful way.

I am amazed at how time has flown by since my last blog. Not sure what happened but hey I'm here now.

You may remember I was having trouble  with my colour  printer.I had a result from HP after I e mailed  them about the ongoing problems. I have a HP Officejet 7500A wide format printer. The main problem was black ink printing, or lack of. Apparently there is a problem with print heads on this model so they sent me another print head and ink. That still didn't solve the problem so they replaced my printer. Took a week to arrive but its great to have a positive outcome. I rarely complain about faulty goods but I did this time and glad I did so.I bought it in May so it was still under warranty.

For quite a while now I have used foil to decorate and highlight text and graphics in my cards. This is how I do it.I think it looks great on  Anniversary and  Wedding cards and this year my Christmas cards are getting the treatment.Well until I get bored...

You need a laser printer   I have a Samsung ML 1860 Series Mono printer which cost about £50.

Toner Foil  ( http://www.patsymay.co.uk  has a good selection I think the 8inch roll is about £10 and smaller one about £6 but if you look around toner foil can be bought by the metre. Just to set you off.)

and a Laminator.( not a special one just a basic laminator this one cost about £14)

Print out your design with your Laser printer, I always turn the image black on my computer before I send it to the  printer but there are good effects to be had by leaving it coloured as well. Experiment.

Depending on the text use the darker setting if you have a choice.
In Properties go to Graphics
Quality -Normal
Font text -Medium
Tonor save-  Printer setting
Darkness - Dark

Heat up the laminator.

Meanwhile lay  the image on a sheet  of thinnish paper. Place the foil over the top make sure the entire  image is covered with foil,  glossy side up and then cover the whole lot  with another sheet of paper and pass through the laminator.

Leave to cool before peeling off the foil.

If its spotty it might be because your laminator isn't hot enough. put it through again.

I think you will agree that these simple designs are just great to add as a topper.

I've added a couple of finished toppers.Hope you like the effect. I'm off to finish off my cards now.

Just for a laugh ...this is my craft room when I'm in the middle of a session.I have been having a play with the panoramic app on my new phone.


Bye for now. Thanks for popping in.Come back soon. xx

Simple Anniversary Card

I was in the mood for crafting last week. Unfortunately work got in the way a bit and my printer decided to play up.Why does this happen when you are having a bit of inspiration? I quite often use My Craft Studio but again this was playing up and kept freezing, of course Tim took the brunt of it. Computers and printers not working....his fault surely. Eventually everything was in working order but by then I had taken an interest in the days proceedings in the Olympics. Twas the day we won 3 Golds. An amazing day for team GB. Very proud to be British at present. Me thinks the Olympics have turned out well. I am not sporty by nature but can get quite animated from the sofa.

A simple idea I had..

An  easel card  using a 3 layer moveable topper. Starting from the back with a Grand Calibur Scalloped Circle cut out in red then 2 layers of Nestability Beaded Circle  onto which I have printed  images from The Clipart Fairy. A couple of flourishes cut out with my Marianne Designs Creative Flourish Die.The background papers are from a selection again by www.theclipartfairy.com . A brad allows the swivel.

Another day another problem with my printer. This time I was trying to print onto a 6'x12' card. I had first designed the card in Craft Artist Professional and this allows you to design the whole card including insert and back page. However when I tried to print onto the 6'x12' card (eventually ending up with a 6'x6' card) I couldn't customise my printer to do this. Of course my in house technical wizard came on the scene trying to sort it. After an hour of trying to sort it with the printer defaults etc I had again lost interest and I printed onto A4 card and cut off the excess. Apparently my printer doesn't support the custom sizes that I had chosen. Typical! Especially as my previous printer did and does so I expect I will be getting that back out. At this rate I will have a printer on every surface.

Another card quite simple with swinging heart and a couple of added flowers.The images are again from www.theclipartfairy.com