I had the pleasure of giving an Anna Griffin Heat Transfer Machine a bit of a test run recently and I have to admit I find myself thinking of things to add foil to all of the sudden… It is essentially a personal gilding machine and was super easy to use. While I initially made a project that was multi-step and a bit more labor intensive – for a simple art print the process would be no more than print and then foil… or glitter… this machine can do both. So easy and fast, which is always my fave even though I rarely find myself doing simple projects, eek.
No worry of sticking your shiny contact paper on straight or the mess from traditional adhesive and gold foil so yahoo for that – you got this! Speaking of how 'you got this', I made you a couple of free printables (download link below)which are perfect on their own or to use with the Minc Foil and Glitter Machine. The images are sized at standard 8×10 so the actual text portion is sized appropriately for the machine and can be printed on 8.5×11″ paper with a laser printer if you don't have 8×10 paper.
PRINTABLES // You Got This / WANDER
Ok so now let's get down to business with this project. You might remember that I recently finished a bit of an office update and if you look closely at those images, you will see a gorgeous brassy logo perched high above the live edge shelves… It is nearly impossible to capture the actual beauty of this with it's reflective quality, but take my word for it – it's good!
So if you want to make your own floating text or any fabulous art print you desire, the steps below will show you how simple it is. For an art print, you can skip the last several steps…
I set up something of a gilding assembly line to create this project since I was planning on foiling quite a few letters – 10 to be exact.
You will want to turn your machine on and set it for the type of paper you will be foiling. It will take a minute to heat up so while it's doing it's thing you can pull out your foil sheets and get them ready for size and cut. I chose the gold because, duh… gold… but the bundle comes with 5 different colors of foil including copper and silver so you can choose whichever works best for you.
For the minc machine to work, you will need something to foil that has either been printed on a laser printer using toner or is made from the special toner sheets included in the Heat Transfer Kit. I don't happen to have a laser printer, so I started by using my Cricut to cut the letters for my logo from the toner sheets. I don't know why but I kind of love to watch this cute machine do it's cutting. It's weirdly satisfying. Now I feel the same way about this gilding machine…
You can also cut the toner sheets with any die cut machine or even scissors so not to worry if you don't have a specialty cutting machine, it is easier but certainly not a requirement.
Ps… If you don't have a Cricut and you wish you did – Get free shipping at Cricut with code AUGSHIP
Once you have your art, you will cut your foil sheets down to a size that is about 1/4″ larger than your art – all the way around.
You will have 3 different sizes of transfer folders included in the bundle and they differ by length so you want to use the size that is closest to the size of your artwork (apparently I didn't snap a photo of this, but you can see the folder two images below).
The instructions suggest running foil projects that use toner sheets through the machine twice, so that is precisely what I did.
Isn't it so pretty? I am not sure you can tell actually, but seriously it is!
Just peel away the excess and it peels off leaving your gilded art looking fabulous. If you are foiling a print, then you would be done and you wouldn't have had to worry about cutting in the first step so the entire process would literally be about 5 minutes or less – start to finish. But… if you are wanting to create a floating something or other, then you will pull out that handy Cricut machine again and cut your art all over again on either foam board or heavy chipboard. I happened to have heavy chipboard on hand so I went with that, but foam would be easier and lighter.
Because of the nature of chipboard (and also foam, perhaps) it will need to cut several times to get all the way through, but again… weirdly satisfying, so there is that…
Then you simply need to marry the two matching pieces together using a spray adhesive or some double sided tape. To hang the letters, I simply used a straight edge and Command Strips. Removal will be a snap and they will stay the course without falling down until I want them to!
I love having this bit of custom floating art in this space. Since I essentially run a full time business, but rarely see the world outside these doors, it's nice to have a bit of a professional office feel without leaving my world of style behind. Since completing this part of the office I have been much more inclined to saunter down to this side of the house when I am working on a project and need to focus or keep my crafty mess contained. Now I just need to finish the other 3 walls in the TDC World Headquarters… we shall see how long that takes me to do – I am guessing 8 months or more with the way things have been going lately! Yikes.
So what say you? Are you so excited about a personal gilding machine? The sky is the limit on your gorgeous creations…
This project was created in part with HSN and the Anna Griffin Heat Transfer Machine. All crazy town is 100% my own, as per the usual. Ps… This is the first ever 6″ Minc Machine launching at HSN, and they have partnered with Anna Griffin to combine her timeless, elegant designs with this cutting edge technology. Pretty cool, eh?
