Photocopying and Hot Foiling Your Dies

I hope you're sitting comfortably, I have a feeling this is going to be a long post.

I accidentally stumbled  upon a video that had me very excited. It's a technique I have never come across before and in the video it looks very easy. 

So I decided to give it whirl to see just how  easy it is and to see how well it worked with my limited equipment. 

I will share how I achieved the technique. I will also leave  the link to Becca's videos at the end.

Firstly,  Becca photocopied her spellbinder dies. This is by far the easiest option.

 My laser printer does not have a copier. 

 So I had to scan the dies using my inkjet printer, then print them  off using the laser printer.                                     

 The first problem I encountered was by doing it this way,  was  that somewhere along the way the size of the scanned dies changes, which meant I couldn't  line up the dies with printed copy. 

 So I had to re size the scanned images of the dies many times before getting a copy that matched up with the die.
After a lot of faffing and a ream of paper later, I finally ended up with an image about as close to the  original die size as I could get. 

The next step was to lay a sheet of toner foil over the photocopy, then cover with a sheet of paper to protect the foil and run it through the laminator.  

After laminating I removed the foil sheet and was left with these beautifully foiled frames..

Once foiled, I laid the die over the foiled oval and run it through the big shot to cut out the centre.  

I forgot to mention,  once I had scanned the oval die, I added a text box with a broad outline around the oval before printing.

Do save a copy of your scanned dies on your PC as a template, especially if you have sizing issues as I did.

If you don't have a laser printer, print off your template sheet in black ink using an ink jet printer, Then take it to a local copier company and get it photocopied onto card and hot foil it when you get it home.

When the oval centre has been cut out, you'll  have  a gold edged oval and a card front with a gold edge aperture in it.
You'll need to repeat this with all  the dies in the set so that you can mix and match ovals and card fronts.

It's unlikely that  you'd use both piece  from the same template on the same card. 

Save the part you are not planning to use.

You could stamp a greeting/ image on the cut out and use it as a topper.

Lay the outer piece of card with the aperture  over some pretty paper as a background to a card.

 As you can see, you need to be very careful about the die positioning before cutting. I was slightly out on this one. But I think I can disguise the fact that my border is uneven by covering it with  a sentiment or flowers.

I think this is a fabulous way to give a gold edge to to those die cuts.

Especially if you only want a narrow border on those fancy frames.








I usually find the die the next size up is much too big to create a nice  narrow borders.

I hope you will find Becca's tutorial as inspiring as I did.
Here  as promised is the link to Becca's video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAicoQBRt5Q

Becca  also has another video on foiling more intricate dies. She offers advice on which dies to choose for this technique. These  are real must watch Videos.

 Link to  Video 2    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqRoN-O889k