Using the Cricut foil kit can often create uneven results. In this article, I will tell you everything you need to know about it and also, how you can test it to get the best results.
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The Cricut foil transfer kits can be used to add some shine to your projects.
The idea behind this type of project is to use the foil tip you insert in your Cricut to apply pressure on the foil sheet to transfer some foil onto your material.
You might have seen other transfer tool that uses heat but the Cricut brand only uses pressure to make the transfer.
Cricut foil transfer kits
First, you need to know that there are two different kinds of foil transfer kits. There's one that fits the Maker and Explore families and the Cricut Venture. And one specially made for the Joy family.
Both of them are blue so they can be easily identified.
The Cricut foil tip for the Makers, Explores and Ventures has 3 tips, the fine, the medium and the bold tip. It comes in a kit that includes 12 foil transfer sheets so you can get started right away.
The Cricut foil tip for the Joy and Joy Xtra has only one tip, a medium one. It also comes in a kit that includes 12 foil transfer sheets so you can get started right away.
Foil transfer sheets
Foil transfer sheets can also be bought separately.
They come in 4x6 (inches) in different colours, and you also have them in 12x12 (inches) in gold or silver. You will also find them in some of Cricut's insert card packages. You'll need to look for "foil transfer insert card" written on the packaging. That will mean that you'll have also some foil transfer sheets inside.
What material can I transfer foil onto?
The foil transfer technique can be used with multiple materials. The result can vary a lot. And the suggested materials are even different depending on the Cricut machine you have. You can see the detailed list on Cricut's website:
Let's just say that it goes from cardstock, and watercolour, to even faux leather. And a little note on faux leather, If you want to see my trick on how to make the foil stay on the faux leather, go check out this post that will tell you how I avoid the foil to rub off.
Test it!
What I strongly recommend is that you make a test before using the foil tip.
I know, I know, that's not what we want to do, we want to go straight to making our project. But I promise, you won't regret your test!
It doesn't need to be very large. Just use a small 4x6 sheet and test the different tips on different cardstock. You'll see, it really varies!
You can see all the different tests I made here:
The white cardstock is a plain, no texture, 60 lbs cardstock. On this one, the fine tip gave a way better result than the 2 other tips.
The blue cardstock also has no texture but it's an 80 lbs cardstock. Again, very good result with the fine tip. The medium also looks good. The bold is not perfect as it has some parts of the circle missing but is still acceptable I think.
The last one, the orange, was a Cricut cardstock (an 80-lb cardstock with texture). The foil transfer worked perfectly for the 3 tips!
How to use the foil transfer kit
Check out the video to learn step-by-step how to test and use your foil transfer kit
