Gold Foil Wall Art using Laminator

I won a laminator in a scotch brand contest last year for the pendant lamp that I made . From the time I received the prize ,I am constantly brainstorming ideas to use the laminator. You can see one of those ideas here where I used laminator for personalizing cakes. Next I came across this gold foiling technique in Pinterest and I wanted to try this.Because you know , how much I love adding gold to my works (If you are new here, browse through my projects to know me better :)). Let see how.

Materials Required :

Laser Print of your desired wall art

Laminator

Gold foil

A Cardstock

A Paper to use above the print as carrier 

Frame

Craft Knife

Double sided tape 

Step 1: Take a laser print of the wall art you want to add gold foil . I just googled the image I am using.You can also look for some free printable of your favorite quote in Pinterest.

Step 2: Decide the area you want to add gold foil and cut the gold foil to the required size. If you are planning to add the gold foil to the entire page then cut the foil to your paper size and ensure it covers  the entire area. The quality of the golf foil is very important to this experiment. When I was planning for this experiment, I came through "Martha Stewart's foil" in different colors in the clearance aisle and purchased two packs in different colors. When I tried the experiment it was a total fail , the foil did not stick to the print instead the result was as if glitter was sprinkled. (I should have known ,when it was in clearance ,poor me.Anyways lesson learnt! ) I don't want to give up this experiment ,so I ordered a new pack of gold foil in eBay and proceeded with the experiment. 

Step 3: Place the foil above the print in such a way that gold part should facing above. Place a paper (any kind of paper, I used normal blue paper so that you can see clearly but you can use a regular copy paper ) above the foil and switch on the laminator. Once it is ready, pass it through the laminator. The paper acts as a carrier and protect the foil from the heat. 

Step 4: Once the paper comes out, leave it cool for a couple of seconds. Use a card and go above the foil once to ensure the foil sticks nicely to the print and remove the foil. (I was too excited to see whether it is working or not, so I just peeled the foil without smoothing it but I think smoothing will be helpful to avoid the spots of the prints peeking through the foil.) What is your result ? Mine was not perfectly gold foiled because you can see the little spots of the prints through the foil.But for me , thats okay compared to my previous experiment. Because I think when I frame this, the spots will not be noticeable.As I said , when you are trying this technique ,try the smoothing technique before removing the foil and let me know how it worked for you. 

Step 5: I laminated the gold foiled sheet, but this is totally optional. To make it look like a store bought wall art, you need to make some finishing touches. To create a border for the wall art , take a patterned card stock or plain card stock of your choice .Use the sheets inside the frame as template. Measure equal distance from the corner on all four sides and mark it with the pencil. Use craft knife to cut the center part and create a border. Use double sided tape on the back side of the inside corner of the border and stick the wall art.

Step 6: Place the wall art inside the frame and the card board that came with the frame. Use the edge of the scissors to secure the cardboard in its place . The frames I used are from dollar stores. That's it! the Wall art is now ready to hang!! 

For just a couple of dollars , you can make beautiful wall art for any space in your home. These are great even for dorm rooms.There are also other alternatives like adhesives designed specifically for attaching foil to any project. You can try that method if you don't have a laminator . If you don't want to add gold foil, you can simply omit that step and follow the remaining steps to create a wall art of your choice. What do you think ? Have you tried making a wall art or gold foiling before ? Share your comments below. As always I will be happy to hear from you.