I will be doing two separate posts about the two different foiling techniques.  One technique involves the Cricut foil tools.  The other technique involves a laser printer and a laminator.  

In this post I will be using the Cricut foil tools.  These tools can be used in the Cricut Maker and Cricut Explorer machines.  The Cricut foil tool has three different sizes, which I will make the same design in all three sizes, so you can compare them.   

I will be making three birthday cards with the foil tools.  The design I am using can be found in Cricut Design Space.  Do not forget to select foil as your line type (top left), and which level of thickness you will be using (fine, medium, bold).  When using the foil tools you will want all of your cuts, scoring, and foiling to all be done on the same mat.  So, you will need to select your project and then click attach in the lower right-hand corner of the project page in Design Space.  If you forget to attach everything, then design space will not place your design or score lines in the correct places when it is being made.   They will be on separate mats.

When is asks which material you are using, select the material you are placing the foil onto.  So, for me I am selecting cardstock. Also make sure you apply the tape the Cricut Foil Tool comes with to secure your foil onto your project.  Try to make sure your foil is tight and does not have any wrinkles in it.  The tape can be reused if it is still sticky.  Make sure you place your foil in the correct spot according to the grids your design is in on the screen.  You can also reuse any section of the foil that was not used in the project.   

I will be using the fine point tip first.  This tip only has one silver stripe around it.  These tips are magnetic.  So, it will snap right into place when you insert it.  Place the color side of you foil color side up.  Then follow the instructions on your screen.  It will walk you through each step as you go.  Do not completely remove the mat from your machine until all sets have been done.  The machine will push your mat mostly out so that you can remove your foil or switch tools when instructed.   

When I was doing the bold tip, I made the mistake of putting the foil on my cardstock while the Cricut was doing the score line.  The Cricut will do the score line first, then it will instruct you to put your foil on next.  I decided to just set everything up, so I did not have to waste time applying the foil.  I could just hit the go button.  By doing this, the scoring tool made some of my tape come up.  This was also the third time using this same piece of tape.  So, it was not as sticky as when I first started.  So, the pink card with gold foil is not perfect and that is due to my user error.   The medium tip (blue card with gold foil) had two spots where the foil ripped, thus resulting in two spots that did not get covered in the foil. Maybe I did not have the foil down correctly/tight. The fine tip (blue card with silver foil) came out perfectly.

There really is not a huge difference between the three different thickness in this design.  It should also be noted that the foil does come off some.  After folding my score lines to make my cards, my hands looked very glittery.  Over all this was a pretty easy technique to do, and I am happy with how they turn out.