Card Making

Foiled Background Cards with the Heidi Swapp Minc

Self Images

Hi Crafty Friends! Hope you’re doing well and getting in some crafting time. Today I’m sharing a couple of cards I made using the Heidi Swapp Minc Foil Applicator. I absolutely love using the Minc, because it gives such elegant results, effortlessly! If you’d like to see how I made these cards and the supplies I used, keep reading.

I began by going through my stash of foil-ready toner backgrounds, and chosing a couple of patterns. Using the Minc machine I foiled one backgound in a vibrant orange foil, and the other in an awesome holographic purple foil.

It was hard choosing just two backgrounds from my stash, but I finally settled on these two.

As I mentioned previously, using the Minc always gives me great results by following these steps…

Turn on Minc and select a heat setting (I have found that setting the heat to “3” works well), then place the toner background, printed side up, in the clear carrier folder.
Place a piece of foil, pretty side up, on top of the toner background.
Once the Minc has reached the correct heat setting the light will change from red to green, indicating that it is ready to foil. Feed the carrier folder, with toner background and foil, into the Minc.
After the carrier folder comes out of the Minc, let it cool for about 10-15 seconds then lift the foil to revel the magic 🙂 BONUS TIP: Keep the used foil to use on another project.

Since my Minc was already set up and ready to go, I foiled the background for my second card. Initially when I was designing my cards, I planned to have a panel of Black Toner cardstock foiled solid in a coordinating color. I realized I didn’t have a piece big enough to foil, so I decided to try the Heidi Swapp Reactive Paint. This was my first time using the reactive paint, and overall I was pleased with the results, although I didn’t use the panel as I had initially intended.

Foiled background for second card.
I applied a small amount of the Heidi Swapp Reactive Paint to heavy-weight white cardstock using a paint brush.
I heat set the cardstock after applying a generous layer of the paint. Ok, I admit I was impatient and didn’t want to wait for it to air dry 🙂
As before, I layered the painted cardstock and foil in the clear carrier folder and ran it through the Minc.
This is the panel foiled with the Reactive Paint. I thought it had great coverage and foiled nicely.

I can’t do a card without blending some ink…so after looking in my swatch book and picking out some colors I inked my foiled backgrounds using an ink blending tool and some blending foams.

  • Decisions, decisions??
  • Ink blending
  • The foil acts as a resist to the ink, giving a lovely colorful result

Next, using the same ink colors I inked a piece of white cardstock, then cut a fancy panel from it using a die and die-cutting machine. I used this panel on the inside of my card.

More inky goodness for the inside of my card

I used the same die set to cut a sentiment from the Gina K Birthday Bash Foil Mates, then foiled. Afterward I lightly inked the edges of the panel using a Tim Holtz Blender Brush. Tim’s Blender Brushes give a very light, very soft ink effect, which is what I was going for on the sentiment panel.

I stamped an inside message on the inked panel, using a stamp from Funny Bones. Because I often mess up when stamping I used my Misti, which really is the best stamping tool in the world! At least in my opinion 🙂

The next step was to cut and score the card base for each card.

Cardstock was cut to 5-1/2 x 11 inches and scored at 4-1/4 inches

Now that I had all the individual components completed, it was time to assemble my cards.

I cut 1/4 inch strips from the solid foil panel…
…and glued them to all four sides of card base front, using 1/8 inch double sided tape.
The foiled background panel was glued to the card base using the Gina K tape runner.
I cut a piece of craft foam and glued to the back of the sentiment panel, then glued the sentiment panel to card front. I used 1/4 inch double sided tape for this step.
The last step in assembling my card was to glue the inside message panel to the inside of my card.

My card was now complete, except the required bling-bling! So I added a few Nuvo Mirrorball Stars to the inside of the first card and jade crystal gems from Studio Katia.

I assembled the second card in the same way. The differences, besides color, were the second card did not have an inside message panel, and I used a die to make a layered sentiment out of mirrored cardstock for the front.

I hope you found this post helpful, and it has inspired you to give foiling a try. If you don’t have a Minc you can also foil using a laminator and a folded piece of copy paper as a carrier folder. If you’re interested in the supplies and tools I used to make these cards, please see the list below. When possible, I have included links to the products at a couple of my favorite online craft stores.

If you liked this post and would like to be notified of future posts, please consider subscribing to my blog by signing up at the bottom of this page. Until next time,

Happy Crafting, Angie!

Supplies and Tools Used

Simon Says Stamp

Gina K Designs

Brutus Monroe

Bonus Tip

To remove ink smudges, glue and other small mishaps from my paper crafting projects, I use the Couture Creations Creative Detailer Tool. This is a battery powered eraser-type tool that I have realized I have to use frequently!

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