Adventures in Foil

I have recently been working with heat transfer foil. You apply a glue, which you can use with a paint brush straight on to fabric or card or paper if you wish, or you can screen print it. I have also used it with Bondaweb so I thought I would share with you all my results as I know a lot of people screen print i'm sure you would be as excited by the idea of foiling your work as much as I am.

So I have been experimenting with using Bondaweb and the glue screenprinted. I have also been trying to find the best temperature for my iron to get the perfect finish, the perfect surface and the perfect amount of time to apply the heat for. I have now perfected that (what an exciting breakthrough that was) so now I shall share with you the results.

Firstly here is Bondaweb applied to the fabric and then the foil ironed on top with a piece of A4 printer paper between the foil and the iron.

As you can see you get quite a grainy effect because the Bondaweb itself is quite fibrous. This sample has also been washed at 40 degrees inside a pillow case. The print became more bitty and worn away. 

Secondly is screen printed glue with foil ironed on top, on top of a woven surface (not intentional I was using a woven rug to protect the table but it had the effect of giving the foil a texture)

Here you can clearly see the effect the woven rug had on the result. Don't iron on a textured surface people! More on that later! This sample has also been washed at 40 degrees inside a pillow case and again the print degraded slightly.

At this point I started working on a new print design based on crystal forms and wanted to use an irridescent foil that looks like oil on water to compliment the mint green and lilac I used in the prints. 

Here is where the breakthrough came. I screen printed the glue on using a paper stencil. Left it to dry completely. I then used a piece of floor lino (smooth side up) that I use for screen printing on, put the fabric on that, then the foil shiny side up, the A4 piece of paper and set my iron to just below the hottest setting. I ironed the foil, always moving, for 30 seconds and then let it all cool.

Et voila! Super smooth super nice heat transfered foil. I am beyond happy with this. The only thing I would say in terms of washing it is gentle hand wash only, this stuff does not like your washing machine! Here it is printed onto a cushion cover which wouldn't need washing very often.

If you are interested in this process leave me a comment as i'm thinking of getting more of this foil in the future.