DIY gold foil prints

By
Style Curator
-

We LOVE gold foil art prints and admire how many artists are layering gold foil over their original artworks.

Today we are going to show you how you can create your own DIY gold foil prints (thanks to our friend Kristy who let us in on how!).

Related article: DIY crystal artwork: Natural crystal pieces in box frame
Related article: DIY marbled prints

Items you will need:

  • A4 laminar (we bought a cheapy from Big W for around $20)
  • Gold foil (we used Jones Tones foil for this DIY but it is no longer available. Use iCraft foil or Heidi Swapp Minc Reactive foil from Spotlight instead)
  • Print out of your image on a laser printer (NOT an ink-jet printer)
DIY gold foil art_what you need
What you will need

Steps:

1. Let the laminator heat up for five minutes.

2. Cut enough gold foil to cover the image.

3. Create a sandwich of the print out, the sheet of gold foil FACING UP and then a sheet of blank paper. Important: we tried this with the gold foil facing the image and wondered why it wasn’t working… the gold foil must face away from the image so you are looking at the pretty gold shiny side.

Make sure gold foil faces away from the printed image

4. Feed it through the laminator and keep your fingers crossed.

Run the print, gold foil and protective blank paper through the laminator

5. Gently peel back the gold foil to reveal your work of art!

Gently peel back gold foil
Voila, it’s that easy!

Hot tips:

  • Make sure your print out is from a laser printer and not an ink-jet printer or it will not work (the foil reacts with the toner)
  • Definitely check that the piece of paper is completely clean — no dust or fluff — or you will get gaps/black spots where the foil doesn’t stick
  • Make sure the foil is facing up at you and you put a blank sheet of paper over the top before feeding it through the laminator
  • You can use PicMonkey, a free online photo editing tool, to create your prints or download our three free printables

There you have it, the trick to creating your very own DIY gold foil art prints!

We’d love to see pics of what you create, tag us @stylecuratorau when you share them online.

Check out more DIYs

Frame and display your gold foil art
Metallic foil available in a range of colours

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78 COMMENTS

  1. Great article, thanks. I was hoping to do some gold foil lettering on a watercolour print that I did. I used standard watercolour paper and paints and spotlight sell a toner pen especially for use with the foil to do hand lettering. I did a trial run with an iron but it didn’t seem to work. I don’t want to go and buy a laminator for one project but do you think that it was the lack of the laminator or the paper that was the problem? Do you know if it works with different types of paper?

  2. To say I am frustrated is an understatement! I have had hit and misses. I have tested 4 laser printers and several types of paper. I’m using Heidi Swapp Minc Foiling and the foiling doesn’t completely stick to the ink, sometimes hardly at all and if it does it is very speckly. I’ve tried the dust /fluff advice but still no luck. I have previously had success twice using all the same equipment. Not sure why it isn’t working for me this time! I have gone through so much paper already. Any other suggestions?

    • Oh no Jenny, I hate to hear this! The only other tips I have would be to make sure you set your print quality as ‘high’ i.e. using as much ink as possible as ‘quick print’ will use less ink and therefore less toner for the gold to adhere to. Also, you can run it through the laminator two or three times to get as much bonding as possible. If this still doesn’t work, and you’d like to get a perfect finish and you plan on making many gold prints, you may be better off paying for a foiling machine. Hope these tips help 🙂

      • Thanks Gina. I never select quick print and I always run it through my laminator 3 times! Might look into a foiling machine before I give it one more go!

  3. So I’ve been running a business making invitations for clients and brides using this process printing on 300gsm card stock. I get the laser printing done at a local digital printing store (through their laser black and white copier which is a Canon ImageRunner) and then go home and add the foil (not taped) over the whole design area and run it through my laminator. This works perfectly and has close to no error in the foil reacting to the toner / sticking, only error when I am working too quickly and the foil creases or folds as it runs through. Now, my local printing store has now closed down and I have been searching for a new one that works as well but all of the printing houses are now using Fuji Xerox’s or Konica Minolta’s and apparently I have learnt that now laser printer toners in newer machines are more “Eco-friendly” resulting in some or few ingredients missing so the foil does not stick as well. Helpppp?
    I love making invitations and want to get that perfect result again. I am using a Fuji Xerox and printing in CMYK which I find is getting a good result, but not as good as the Canon I used before. Any ideas on how I can better this?
    In summary, after lots of trial an error I’ve found it comes down to the toner not being as good as the old stuff resulting in the foil not adhering as well. Can anyone else relate?

  4. How might you do this to make a sticker with the foil text to be used on a candle? or was paper over the print with foil and heat it slightly to make it stick do you think? thanks

  5. Hi Mary,
    Do you know whether you can put an already foiled invitation through a printer in order to get the additional text printed to the invitation? Just to avoid accidentally getting foil on the wrong parts of the invite.

    • Hi Jessica, we haven’t tried that but think it would work as the foil bonds to the ink (ie it’s not raised). We suggest doing one test run just to be sure. Let us know how you go 🙂

  6. What a great tutorial! I’ve had excellent success using the Heidi Swapp Minc Heat Reactive Foil from Spotlight (bought on sale for approx. $14AUD for a 1x10ft roll). I used standard 210gsm white card from the local newsagent, printed using a Canon laser printer, and heated using a GBC Blizzard laminator. There are a few black flecks of ink left underneath the foil where it hasn’t completely transferred, but you cannot notice unless you look very, very closely. Thanks so much!

    • Hi Kelsi, thanks so much for sharing what products you used and letting us know the results! Great to know there are other products out there given the foil we originally used is so hard to come by now 🙂

    • Hi Kelsey/everyone,

      Does anyone have any suggestions for an affordable laser printer? I used my work toner printer and the foil is coming out speckled. After trawling the internet it seems that its down to the toner/laser and that being a monochrome one.

      I cant seem to find any laser printers that arent over $1000! I’m in Melbourne, any help would be greatly appreciated

  7. Hi ladies,

    Does anyone know where to buy gold foil?! I’ve been searching like crazy and so far, no luck! I found this product at office works but a comment on the page said it would not work for printing?

    Thanks!!

  8. Hello 🙂

    I have the same problem as Serena, my foil sticks to the paper too. There is some foil that transfer onto the paper after. I have tried 3 different methods…using iron, printer and a laminator. Do you know why this might be happening? Thank you so much!!!

    • Hi Mary

      What kind of gold foil are you using? If you’re using the right foil and ink printer, the only cause we can think of is some dust or fluff. Try a test piece and be sure to blow away any little fluff or dust that’s sitting on the paper before you run it through the laminated. If that doesn’t work, you may want to do a test with a different kind of paper. We used a flat paper stock so if you’re using textured paper or any other kind of special paper it may be giving you different results. Hope these tips are helpful and let us know how you go 🙂

      • Hi Gina,

        Thank you so much for your reply. You have no idea how many blogs I have asked this question to. And you are the only one that replied. You are so helpful. I will definitely try different paper. I will let you know how it goes. xoxo

    • Hmmm we’ve never tried this with an iron but you’d think the process would be the same? All we can suggest is to follow the DIY as we’ve done it (ie using a laminator with the protective paper on top) because it worked a treat for us. Has anyone tried this DIY using an iron? Can you suggest any other tips for Serena??

  10. Thank you for the tip. I tried a paper from a new pack and voila no spots. However, foil is not smooth. It is very bumpy.

    • Yay for no spots but bumpy doesn’t sound right either :-/ Perhaps experiment with different paper stocks (different weights of paper) to bond your gold foil to and see if that resolves the issue 🙂

  11. I have tried the same laminator and used heat embossing. My gold foil got stuck in the laminator and didn’t come through. I did it without the carrier sheet.

    Then I tried with carrier sheet. I worked but there were dome spots left. Not sure.

    • Hi Shaleen

      Our tip is to always use a protective piece of paper and to avoid any dots, make sure the paper is 100% dust free – even a small speck of dust will prevent foil from sticking in that spot 😉 Hope this trick helps with your next foil artwork!

  12. Hi, Heidi Swapp recently introduced her Minc foil machine to Australia which is a dedicated machine for creating this type of print. It is much more expensive than a simple laminator (it is $199). However, also in the Minc range is a whole set of heat transfer foils in a variety of colours that are 12″ by 10 feet rolls for $17.95 at Spotlight, plus special templates and papers that are preprinted and you just have to run them through the machine with the foil. I am currently experimenting with the Minc gold foil and a cheap laminator. As my laminator gets hotter the foils are bonding better and better so it appears there is a new alternative to the Jones Tones foils! I can’t wait to try more colours!

  13. Nikky, I have done exactly that for my wedding invites… bought the Brother printer and the gold foil…. its been a looooong process as we had about 1 in 4 invites turn out okay enough to send. (And none were what I’d call perfect – but I’m sure the slight imperfections the receiver wouldn’t notice). Wasnt sure if it was the laminator (as we bought a $20 from cosco) or the printer… but there we have had trouble getting a consistent result.

  14. Hi guys is anyone that is having ink troubles been using a brother laser printer… I have been researching so I can do the gold foil for my wedding invites and noticed on eBay someone selling the foil but said that inkjet and brother laser printer toner does not work… Was just about to get a brother printer from Harvey Norman to start (only $36 – bargain) so hoping someone can clear this up 🙂

    X

  15. Hi,

    Just wondering if you know if ‘Silhouette printable adhesive Gold Foil’ works?
    I havent been able to find the ‘Jones Tones’ anywhere, but found this silhouette one online!

    Thanks

    • Hi Rochelle

      We haven’t used that foil but if it works, please let us know! We know the Jones Tones one is really hard to find now but a reader said she tried the Martha Stewart gold foil and that worked so we’d suggest giving that one a try! Hope that helps 🙂

  16. Hi there,
    I brought a laminator and the same gold foil brand but I am unable to get this affect, the gold foil is not sticking on the ink properly? Do you know what I could be doing wrong? Is the laminator not hot enough or is the gold foil not working. 🙁
    Any insight would be great!

    • Hey Jenny

      It sounds to us like ink is the issue here… Some places say they use laser printers when they actually use inkjet and this tutorial ONLY works with laser printers. If you’re going to Officeworks or a big printer place, they are most likely using inkjet printers. If you try again with a laser printer and it still doesn’t work, please let us know and we’ll try offer other tips 🙂

  17. Hi

    Just wondering if anyone has tried this on metallic paper?

    I am planning on using this method for my daughters christening invites and the paper I am using is from officeworks which is 120gsm light pink metallic paper.

    • Hi Daniele
      Sorry for our late reply and hopefully we’re not too late in responding! So long as the black ink from your laser printer sticks to the metallic paper it should be fine for the gold foil too – with this tutorial it’s like the black ink sucks in the gold foil rather than the gold foil sticking on top of the ink… Not sure if we described that in the best way but hopefully it makes some sense! If you already tried it, we’d love to know how they turned out 🙂

  18. I came across your blog looking looking to see if anyone had tried the Martha Stewart foil yet. Noticing that there wasn’t a response yet I gave it a try and it worked! My local craft store is moving and they were blowing out the packs for $0.80CDN so I grabbed as many as I could even if though it was only the red/fuchsia/pink foils! I used the embossing powder method with a 20 year old heat tool that Letraset made called the Colorwand. It’s a type of iron that only has a 1.5″ x 2.5″ head. Letraset was 20 years too early!

    I have a tip if you use the embossing powder method, just make sure that you allow your paper to cool down otherwise you will just transfer the embossing powder to the back of the transfer foil. The exact opposite of what you want!

    In my search for foil transferring I found a few other blogs that also show other foiling techniques that might be helpful. Jennifer McGuire Ink http://www.jennifermcguireink.com/2015/04/video-foil-die-cuts-3-ways.html just did several videos. How About Orange shows a 2 step laser printer technique where she prints out the design and then places the foil sheet onto the design and runs it through the printer again by getting the printer to print a blank page. To see her technique go here http://howaboutorange.blogspot.ca/2013/06/diy-foil-cards-better-method.html . She also notes that not all papers work well with this technique.

    Lots of fun and inspiration!

    • Hi Natalie

      Thanks so much for sharing! So great to know the Martha Stewart foil works!

      Ohhh we’ve never seen that Letraset before – looks like a nifty tool 🙂

      Thanks also for sharing those other tutorials. We haven’t tried that die cut method yet so might be another craft project to add to the list 😉

      So much fun and inspiration!

    • You are AMAZING Catherine! THANK YOU for sharing this info – so helpful!!!

      We’d love to see photos of what you made if you’re happy to share! You could post them on our Facebook page or tag us when you share them online (@stylecuratorau is our profile name on all accounts) 🙂

      • Thank guys! Using this technique I now have my own website selling foil prints. They are so popular! The custom prints are the favourites so far 🙂

        • Wow Catherine! That’s fabulous! And your prints look amazing, no wonder they’re selling like crazy 🙂

    • Hi Catherine,
      Thanks for the link to craftonline. There seems to be a range to choose from, some in rolls and some just sheets. Can you tell me
      which works the best before I purchase.
      Many thanks. Pam

  21. Great tutorial!

    Any advice on the type of paper to use for both gold foiling then screen printing (using permaset ink) onto it after?

    Gotta project in mind but not sure what paper would work for both mediums (and that would go into a laminator)

    Many thanks

  22. Hi there, I just came across this post and I’m wondering if anyone has ever tried the Martha Stewart foil transfer sheets? I’m not sure if the Jones Tones foil was regular foil or transfer sheets, but I was debating buying the Martha Stewart brand. Thanks!

    • Hmmmm sorry Dawn, we haven’t tried Martha’s gold foil yet but would love to know how you go with it if you do!

      The Jones Tones didn’t say foil transfer on it which is why so many shop assistants say they don’t stock it when you explain to them what you want to do – it simply says gold foil and we think most people use it to cut and paste in scrapbooks? Please let us know if the Martha Stewart one works if you try it 🙂

  23. Hey
    Awsome work !
    Wondering how long in-between the printing and the laminating it has to be or can it be up to hours or days in-between ?

    • Hey Brittney

      We printed them in the morning and did the DIY in the evening so the ink was definitely not wet… So we don’t see an issue with waiting several days – just make sure you get it printed on a laser printer and not an ink-jet. This DIY will not work unless the right ink is used 🙂 Hope this helps!

  24. Hi there, I absolutely LOVEEE this idea!
    I too had trouble finding Jones’ Tones. But whilst searching, a similar item popped up on my screen….iCraft DecoFoil
    Not sure how it is compared to Jones’ Tones, but maybe it helps?

    Will also check out the one at Officeworks.

    thanks for sharing this fabulous tip guys xo

    • Thanks for the hot tip Anna and yes, please do let us know how you go with those other brands! Otherwise we’re thinking of starting a petition with Jones Tones to bring back the gold foil, ha ha 🙂

  25. I did manage to track down one roll of Jones Tones paper and love this idea. Craft Online also stock :
    Ranger Shiny Transfer Foil Sheets 10 pack .
    Unfortunately these appear to be in a pack of 10 different colours hope this might be of help – especially to poor Belinda who as tried so hard.
    I will also try to get hold of the one from Office Works.
    Would love to hear if you have been able to track down another distributor also.

  26. Hi, I really love this look and found that it worked pretty well except that I ended up with tiny foil particles on other parts of the paper, not just the image. Any tips for this? Thanks

    • Hi Kerry

      Yay, glad you were able to track down the gold foil and try this DIY! We didn’t have the issue of foil sticking to other parts of the paper but we were super careful to remove all dust and fluff from the paper before we fed it through the scanner (like we blew and wiped away dust 10 times beforehand!). Perhaps with your next piece of art it’s worth taking a few minutes to ensure there aren’t any specks of fluff on your paper that could attract gold foil to stick where you don’t want. Please let us know if this helps!

  27. Did anyone have any luck with the Officeworks foil? Or have any recommendations for where to buy foil from in Aus? Can’t wait to try this!

    • Hi Louise

      Sorry for our late reply! We haven’t heard from anyone yet if the Officeworks foil worked so we recommend using the Jones Tones foil if you can find it!

      We recently bought the last gold foil in Canberra for Amber who commented above otherwise we’d go out and get some for you too 🙁

      Lincraft is our best bet to find it – the staff might say they don’t have it but you need to explain it’s not foil paper, rather gold foil used for gold leafing etc, at least that’s what happened to us!

      If you can’t find it in Australia, you may need to pay a little more to get it posted from USA. Sadly we heard Jones Tones have discontinued this product so best to get it quickly if you’d like the try the DIY.

      Sorry we couldn’t be of more help!

  28. Hi there, great post and inspiration for all of us!One quick tip – if some of the gold foil won’t stick perfectly to the toner, try setting the temp a little lower and then leave the gold foil exposed. This will create a strong bond and will not result in many, if any, black spots. Try one paper one cover sheet on the bottom, leave top exposed and it will stick a lot better. You’ll have to mess with the temp a little to find the sweet spot – depends on paper thickness and foil used.

  29. Hi! I was determined to make these but having no luck. I went and bought everything I needed, followed your instructions and made sure the gold was facing up away from the quote. Nope, not working 🙁

    • Hi Belinda, oh no! We just wanted to check before you give up – did you print the image on an ink-jet printer or laser printer? For this DIY to work, the image needs to be printed on a laser printer as the foil reacts with the toner. Most offices use ink-jet printers so it might be worth double checking. If this still doesn’t work, could you give us a little more info about what happens when you try the DIY i.e. is the foil not combining at all? We really want to help find out the problem so this works for you too 🙂

      • Thanks so much for replying! I had the images printed out at office works and asked beforehand if they were using a laser printer which they assured me. I gave it another go today using foil from spotlight and its still not working 🙁 The ink is on the back of the foil when I peel it off, the foil is just not sticking to the print!! I even tried using an iron and its still not doing anything. Maybe the lady at office works told me the wrong thing?

        • Hi Belinda, we think it must be the printing. Generally printing services use ink jet printers because they offer better photo quality printing and are more efficient. If you like, you can email us the JPEG/PDF/Word Doc with your image on it and we can print and post it to you. Our address is hello@stylecurator.com.au. Alternatively, you might find that your local library has a laser printer. Hope this helps!

          • Thanks guys!! Will give the library a go and if that fails I’ll just buy a laser printer of my own, not long bought a printer hence why I wasn’t rushing out to get a laser one!
            Thanks so much for her help, I will let you know how I go!!! x

            • No worries at all Belinda, and seriously, we’re more than happy to post you some print outs to get started (if you change your mind 😉 ). Chat soon, xx

  30. Thank you for the tutorial. I can’t wait to do this for my own wedding invitations. But, I have a little problem for this realisation. I do not have a laser printer. Does the toner has to be fresh printed? Does it work the same? Because in that case I would go to my printer and then go back home with the invitations to gold foil them.

    • Hi Celia

      What a great idea to use this for your wedding invitations! We printed ours during the day and applied the gold foil at night so that shouldn’t be a problem 🙂

  31. Hi. I’m in love with these prints and am so excited to try them but I’m having trouble finding the gold foil. I don’t have a lincraft nearby and it’s not showing up on their website. Any hints on where else to buy?

    • Hi there Ladies,

      I have been trying to hunt down the Jones Tones foil paper you have used for this project. After much investigation it turns out that the Jones Tones company was sold and the new owners are not continuing the foil paper therefore the stock is discontinued and mostly sold out from them direct.
      Have you seen or know of a retailer stocking a similar foil paper? All I seem to get are blank looks and confused dead ends! I have tried all my independent local art stores, the buyers for Lincraft, spotlight, Riot, Ercksleys, craft depot, and hobby sew and craft distributers SSS.
      It would be great to find an Australian Supplier as shipping rates from America are about $50 plus!!

      Many Thanks
      Amber

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