So if you’re loving your MINC foil applicator you’re probably also pulling your hair out from time to time. I love this craft tool, but I’ve found, that it can quickly become a hefty investment.
I found a little trick that will hopefully help you stretch your craft dollars too! One theme you’ll find on this blog is craft thriftiness. I’m all about buying high quality products, but I like to get as much out of them as I can. Using a little paper for protection will go a long way. Here’s how.
Watch Your Tone(r)
When I first started foiling with toner reactive foil, I was making silly, costly mistakes. The biggest one was letting areas of my work that I didn’t want foiled rub off on the sleeve/transfer folder. For example, I was working on a new set of notecards and wanted to foil different parts of the card in gold foil and leave the rest as is. So I printed the entire card on my laser printer and began foiling with my favorite foil, iCraft Deco Foil in gold. I left the areas I didn’t want to foil uncovered and rolled it through my applicator in the sleeve.
Here’s my latest card set, “Dotted Greetings” printed and ready to be foiled
Well I am happy to say the area I wanted in gold came out fine. The other areas I didn’t want to foil, you know the black toner parts, rubbed right off on the sleeve. Uh-oh. But I thought to myself that maybe that was supposed to happen. So I continued to foil the next areas with the next color and that’s when disaster struck. The area of the sleeve that picked up the toner re-deposited the toner to my paper which clearly I didn’t want to happen.
Sadness! Here’s one of my early sleeves with lots of toner mistakes!
Use Paper Protection
So now there I was 11:00 at night with a dirty sleeve that would forever ruin everything I put through my pretty applicator. At first I thought, I’d wait till the morning to buy another sleeve, but then craft magic hit me. I thought, let me try this again but just cover the areas I don’t want to be affected by my toner faux pas with paper. So I slid a piece of paper between the dirty sleeve and a new printout, put it through my MINC again and boom, no more toner deposits on my final work.
Here’s my MINC sleeve with a piece of paper to protect my work and the sleeve from toner & ink deposits
Success! The foil went where it needed to and my sleeve is still clean and ready for the next job!
The MINC Takeaway
So now when I foil I take an extra step and cover the areas I don’t the toner reactive foil to adhere to with a piece of plain printer paper (parchment paper works wonders too.) This way I avoid toner deposits where I don’t want it. I actually have found that some inkjet ink will end up on the sleeve as well. By taking this extra step, I have lengthened the life of my sleeve and kept a few extra dollars in my pocket.
Finished pretty product – Dotted Greetings by PinkimonoPapers!
Let me know if has helped you cave a little cha-ching. Please share your thoughts and any other tips that have worked for you. Let’s help each other make pretty things.
