Hot foil is the best way to bring some shimmer to your Christmas cards this year – and also a simple option for personalising them. Whether you’re looking to make your cards stand out on the mantelpiece or you’re keen to create the most unique designs out there, hot foil is the ideal way to do it. Here is our ultimate guide to personalising your Christmas cards with hot foil.
- Add hot foil effects to photos. This is a really simple way to create cards that are very personal to you and your family and friends. It’s easy to apply hot foil to photos – you can add lettering over photos in any metallic shade that works for you. Add the hot foil over the photo or use it to provide decoration around the photo – or to create a really distinctive Christmas message somewhere in the photo. One of the most effective ways to make the hot foil pop is to convert your photo to black and white with software like Photoshop, print it out and then add your Christmas message in hot foil over the top. The card will be completely unique and personal to the relationship you have with whoever you’re sending it to.
- Using the shadow foiling technique. Foil is opaque, which means that you can layer it up when you’re creating your unique Christmas cards – whatever you foil last will be the most visible. Pick a design for your hot foil plates and then choose a darker-coloured foil, such as a metallic black. Create the first part of the design in this darker shade, and then you’ll then need a lighter-coloured foil – like a matte gold – to repeat the same process with the same plate just slightly to one side. The effect will be a gold design that is shadowed by the dark metallic foil.
- Create a decorative corner shimmer. We all love shimmer at this time of year, so the more metallics you can add to your Christmas cards, the better. A decorative corner shimmer acts like an attractive frame to your Christmas message, and it’s very simple to achieve. When you have a hot foil plate in the design that you want to use, it can be foiled onto one corner – or every corner of the front of the Christmas card. This is also a very simple way to create a decorative background for a Christmas message at the centre of your card, one that you can personalise individually for everyone you are sending it to.
- Don’t forget to tidy up the final design. Overfoiling can leave you with excess bits of foil on your Christmas card design that look out of place. These are very easy to remove with something like a sand eraser so that your final design looks perfect.
Hot foil machines are a great tool if you’re looking to create unique, personalised Christmas cards this year. Simple, versatile and easy to use, they give you lots of creative options.