Hot Foil Stamping for Beginners: Complete Guide to Glimmer Foiling Techniques

Hello cardmakers! Welcome to the fifth installment of the Beginners Guide to Cardmaking Series. I’m Lisa Tilson, and today we are focusing on the gorgeous world of Hot Foil Stamping.

A lot of crafters talk about the magic of heat embossing – how it never gets old watching the embossing powder melt and your image or sentiment appearing in front of you. Many crafters also feel the same about hot foiling. There is something magical about peeling back the pretty foil and seeing an image, sentiment, or background reveal itself in all its shimmery glory!

So, let’s dive in with what you need to know if you are new to cardmaking and are considering giving foiling a go. The most important thing with hot foiling is to experiment. Play with your supplies and don’t worry if it doesn’t work well the first time around. There are many variables when hot foiling, and you will find a way that works best for you. Mistakes are all part of the learning process, and before you know it, you’ll be foiling everything in sight!

What Is Hot Foil Stamping?

Hot Foil Stamping is a technique where you add a design/impression onto your surface by using a hot foil/press plate and heat-activated or thermal foil. It produces a beautiful non-dimensional metallic shine to your project.

When you use a hot foil system, the heat comes from your heated platform, and the pressure comes from your die‑cutting machine. As the heated platform (and plate) pass through your machine, the pressure pushes the foil onto your material. This combination of heat and pressure transfers the design cleanly onto your surface.

What Will You Need for Hot Foil Stamping?

The list below are items that are considered to be essential for hot foiling. You will need the following if you are going to be foiling for cardmaking:

• Glimmer Hot Foil System
• Platinum 6 Die Cutting Machine/a compatible Die Cutting Machine
• Foil Plate or Press Plate
• Foil
• Cardstock
• Best Ever Craft Tape – this will hold your plate in place and stop it from shifting during the foiling process

Note: You can even foil with wafer-thin dies (0.88mm)! This gives a much more delicate result than foiling a plate, as only the thin cutting lines will get transferred. It’s beautiful! Not all wafer-thin dies will work, so you will need to experiment with this technique.

Other Useful Tools

A few other tools that you might find helpful when foiling are:

• Quick Trimmer – this is a great tool to use when you want to cut a specific size of foil, and it also helps to reduce foil wastage.
• Scissors – the 9” Pro Shears are excellent for cutting foil as well as cardstock.
• Handy Craft Tool Set – the nudger tool in this set can be helpful when moving your plates once they are sitting on the Glimmer Hot Foil System platform.
• Magnetic Pick-Up Tool – this tool does come with the newer Glimmer Hot Foil Systems, but you can also buy it separately if you have an older system.
• Craft knife – you can use this to help scrape off any overfoiling from your project.

Foil

You cannot hot foil without a roll of foil! So, Glimmer Hot Foil is essential, and there are plenty of stunning colours to choose from, whether you are a gold or silver lover or prefer to foil for example, with pink, purple, grey, black, or blue. You can achieve a tone-on-tone look by using Opal Foil on any colour cardstock. You can also get a tone-on-tone look when using a blue foil on a blue cardstock, for example.

Any heat-activated or thermal foil will work with your Glimmer Hot Foil System. All colours of foils look lovely on white cardstock, but coloured foils look especially gorgeous on dark cardstock (black, navy, or dark grey) as the colours stand out beautifully.

Toner foil or Minc foil will not work with the Glimmer Hot Foil System.

Cardstock

When you are talking about cardstock for Hot Foil Stamping, the consensus is the smoother the better. This will help you achieve the best results. Here are a few cardstocks to consider:

• ColorWheel Cardstock – this is 100lb and works very well for foiling. It is smooth on both sides.
• Glimmer Specialty Cardstock – this is a synthetic cardstock that weighs approximately 76lb. The extra smooth coating not only works perfectly for foiling but it is also excellent for mixed media, alcohol inks, etc.
• You can also experiment with other cardstocks in your stash, but always remember the smoother the cardstock, the better the result. 80lb and 100/110lb cardstocks work well for foiling. Embossed or textured cardstocks will not foil cleanly.

Hot Foiling On Other Materials

Hot foiling is not restricted to cardstock! You can foil onto heat-resistant acetate, vellum, and even ribbon/thin fabric and leather to name but a few materials. Glimmer Specialty Clear Film gives beautiful results when foiled. Keep in mind that you may need to add extra shims to aid the foiling process on some materials.

Foiling/Press Plates

A couple of things to note about foiling plates.

• Foiling plates are different to your dies. They do not have a cutting edge, just a raised design. They can look similar at first glance.
• You can use BetterPress plates for hot foiling. However, you cannot use your foiling plates for BetterPress techniques.

So, what types of plates can you get?

• Background/Cover Plates – these are typically rectangular and a little larger than American A2 size. They will transfer a design over your entire A2 panel (4.25” x 5.5”) of cardstock. Whether you want stars, flowers, script text, confetti or snowflakes, you are sure to find something that will work for your design.

• Image Plates – these can include anything from florals, foliage, and butterflies to splatters and flourishes. Many come with matching dies to allow greater flexibility in your cardmaking.
• Sentiment Plates – there are a couple of options for sentiment plates. You can buy sets that contain individual sentiments with coordinating dies. Or you can buy sets that have one plate containing many different sentiments, and just one die to cut them all out in one pass. Sentiment foiling plates come in many different sizes and fonts and cover a huge array of occasions.

• Alphabet/Number Plates – useful for when you want to customise your project for a particular person, event, or date.
• Frame Plates – these are often (but not limited to) floral and can add a beautiful, pretty frame around the outer edges of your project.
• Border Plates – useful for adding a design down one or more edges of your cardstock. You don’t have to use them on the edges; you could use them on the diagonal if you wish!

• Shaped Plates – these can be used as a smaller backdrop to a focal point – e.g., circular.
• Stripe/Line Plates – what’s not to love about adding foiled lines to your card design for a modern, contemporary look?
• Solid Rectangle Plate – this plate is primarily for the reverse foiling technique when used in conjunction with your leftover foil. You can also use your solid hot foil plate to create a solid foiled panel. Simply foil the entire plate onto your cardstock to make a full rectangle of foil, then die cut any shape you like from that panel. It’s an easy way to get decorative shimmery elements for your card.

Adding Colour to Your Foiled Images

So now that you have foiled your image, what do you want to do with it? You may want to leave it as is, without any colour, for a beautiful, clean, and simple design. Or would you like to add some colour? If so, you have a few choices.

• Layering Stencils

Layering stencils has become very popular in recent times. If layering stencils has been made to coordinate with your foiled image, then you can use them to add focused colouring with ink blending.

• Ink blending

As an alternative, you can ink blend a panel of cardstock and foil your image on top. You could also reverse that process and foil your image first and add your ink over the top. The foil will resist the ink, and it’s a quick and easy way to add colour!

• Alcohol Markers/Pencils

There are a few other ways to colour your foiled image. You can colour it with alcohol markers, pencils, or even Karin Brushmarker Pro markers. If you have the time for colouring a foiled image, it can produce stunning results.

Hot Foil Stamping Tips & Tricks

To get the best results with hot foil stamping, here are a few tried and tested tips and tricks.

• Use the correct cardstock. This can make all the difference to how successful your foiled image will be. You might find that if your cardstock is too thick, then you may get some overfoiling. Overfoiling is when you see tiny flecks of foil in areas outside of the plate design.
• To reduce the chances of overfoiling, trim your foil to size before foiling.
• If you do get some overfoiling, use a clean white eraser to rub off the excess. You can also try using a craft knife (as mentioned above in the tools section). You can even use a sand eraser, but be careful to avoid scratching your foiled design. The sand eraser works well for removing overfoiling that isn’t too close to your foiled design.
• Make sure your machine is fully heated up before attempting to foil.
• Run your platform slowly through your Platinum 6 Die Cutting Machine. This will ensure you get even pressure as it passes through. You can run it forwards and backwards if you wish.
• If you get some underfoiling, make sure your cardstock is not too thin and ensure you have the correct shims in place. You may need to add an additional paper shim to provide a bit of extra pressure. Be careful adding shims and do not force anything through your die cutting machine.
• Always use the magnetic pick-up tool to remove the plate from the heated platform. Included with your Platinum 6 Die Cutting Machine is a cooling mat. You can place your plate on this whilst it is cooling down.

Step-by-Step Foiling Process

Let’s run through how to foil using the Glimmer Hot Foil System.

1. Turn on your machine using the switch on the back of the docking station. All three lights on the left-hand side will flash immediately. You have a red power light, a green platform-ready light, and a green timer light. The two green lights will go off straight away and leave you with a static red power light.
2. Prepare your plate, foil, and cardstock whilst the machine heats up.

• Take your piece of cardstock and place your foil on top of it, pretty side up.
• Place your foil or press plate on top of the foil with the raised edge touching the pretty side of the foil. You will now see the back of the plate.
• Tape the plate in place using low-tack tape.

3. When the platform has heated up, the green platform ready light will come on.
4. Flip your prepared plate, foil, and cardstock over and place it onto the heated platform. The foiling plate is directly touching the heated platform.
5. Press the timer button, and it will start flashing.
6. Add your two shims on top. You have one thin green shim and a clear spacer pad. The thin green shim should be placed on top first with the clear spacer pad on top of that. NB: You don’t have to do this step now. This is a personal preference. You can add them just before you run the sandwich through your die-cutting machine.

7. Once the timer button stops flashing, remove the platform and run it slowly through your die-cutting machine. You need to leave the shims on (or add them on) for this part of the process.
8. Bring the sandwich back to your desk.
9. Remove the shims and then your cardstock. You can use the pick-up tool at this point if you need to.
10. Remove the low-tack tape, and peel back the foil to reveal your design!

11. If you want to continue foiling, pop your platform back into the docking station and wait for the platform-ready light to come on again.
12. If you have finished foiling, you can switch your machine off now.

Note: The Glimmer Hot Foil System has a safety mechanism that will automatically turn the machine off if it is inadvertently left on.

There are a few variations on the above foiling process depending on your preference. Some crafters don’t tape their plate to their cardstock, and they use a different technique to foil. You may see the following process and feel that this works best for you, especially if you are going to be die cutting your foiled image and you don’t need for it to be specifically located in a defined area of your cardstock panel. This can also work well for a foiled background panel.

1. Switch the machine on and wait for the platform ready light to come on.
2. Place your foiling plate down onto the heated platform (raised edges up).
3. Add your foil on top (pretty side down).
4. Place a panel of cardstock on top of the foil.
5. Press the timer button and wait for it to stop flashing.
6. Add your two shims. As mentioned previously, you can add them at this point or just before you run everything through your die-cutting machine.
7. Follow steps 7-12 as above.

So, there you go, a quick run-through of how to foil. There are many educational videos on the Spellbinders Blog if you prefer a visual run-through.

I hope you’ve found this introduction to hot foil stamping helpful. As you step into the world of foiling, remember to be kind to yourself while you learn. It takes a little time to build confidence with the process, and that’s completely normal. Practice is everything. Experiment, play, and discover what feels natural to you. Once it clicks into place, you’ll wonder how you ever crafted without it!

Next up in the series, we’ll be diving into all things Letterpress. We’ll walk you through each step of the process so you can feel confident, informed, and ready to begin your own letterpress journey. In the meantime, thank you for being here!