Jeff McRitchie

How to Enhance Your Documents with Decorative Foil

Have you ever wanted to make your documents stand out by enhancing them with foil? If so, you will be glad to know that using foil is surprisingly easy and you can apply it to your work with a pouch laminator. Foil fusing can add a bit of class to your letterhead, document covers, and business cards. And if you send out special holiday cards, foil can make them a little bit more festive. Does that sound good? Then let's get started.

Have you ever wanted to make your documents stand out by enhancing them with foil? If so, you'll be glad to know that using foil is surprisingly easy and you can apply it to your work with a pouch laminator. Foil fusing can add a bit of class to your letterhead, document covers, and business cards. And if you send out special holiday cards, foil can make them a little bit more festive. Does that sound good? Then let's get started.

First of all, you need to make sure you have the right supplies to add foil to your work. This is what you need:

• A pouch laminator that has adjustable speed and temperature settings. The laminator should be large enough to accommodate your items.

• Toner-receptive foil. This foil is available in a number of colors including red, blue, purple, silver, and gold.

• A good pair of scissors.

• A laminating carrier. There should be one in your latest package of laminating pouches. The carrier looks a bit like a file folder.

• Finally, you need to have access to a photocopier or laser printer. You will need toner in order to fuse the foil on to your items. Other types of inks won't get the job done, unfortunately.

Now that you know what supplies you need, take a few minutes to round them up. Once you're ready, just follow these steps to add foil to your work:

• You can start by turning your laminator on. You need to use a laminator that's capable of processing pouches that are 10 mil thick. This is because heat is essential to the foil fusing process. You will probably need to wait a few minutes for your laminator to warm up, which is pretty typical.

• Print your documents, business cards, etc. on your photocopier or laser printer. Once the documents have been printed, select a suitable foil color. Cut the foil into pieces that will completely cover your text and/or graphics. Place the foil on these areas and then put your document in the laminating carrier.

• By now, your laminator should be ready for use. If it's ready to go, place the carrier in the machine's feed opening. As the laminator processes your item, the heat will cause the foil to fuse to your document.

• After your document comes out of the machine, you can let it cool off and peel away the excess foil. If you want to ad foil to your other materials, go ahead and do. When you're done, turn off the laminator so it doesn't overheat.

The foil fusing process isn't particularly difficult, but it might take you a couple of tries before you get really good at it. Also, you might find that some paper stocks are easier to work with than others. As long as you keep practicing, you'll be able to get to the point where your documents and other items look fantastic. Good luck and have fun adding foil to your documents!

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