Since I had to buy my own birthday present, I bought myself the Foil Transfer Set. I have every foiling system there is. If you want to see my reviews of the others, go here. This one is great! No heat, no glue, no printer, and it works in the Air machines! At $35 dollars, it isn’t even too badly priced.
The only down side I can find is that none of my other foils work without the heat or glue, etc. So you have to buy the foill from Cricut. When I find other brands that will work I will link to them here.
What Comes in the Package
There is some tape and other white stuff that I just threw to the side in the box for the Foil Tips Set. That isn’t what I got it for. The housing is the same shape as the fine point blade holder so I will work in the Maker and the Air machines. I’m glad Cricut realized that not everyone has the maker. And there are three tips in the package. They ave bands on them, one band for the fine tip and two for the medium and three for the bold. There aren’t really instructions in the box but there are plenty of tutorials like this one to explain how to use it. It also comes with some small gold foil sheets. Now I already bought the sample sets and large gold and silver sheets, so I have plenty. They aren’t too expensive really (about $12 for the full sized gold or silver packs and I found the other colors in the small sample pack for $5 at Michaels)
Which tip do I want to use?
I had some problems with the bold tip. It kept catching the foil, no matter how well I taped it down. The tip kept catching on the foil and crinkling it. I tried it 4 times and it did it every time. So I was most happy with the medium tip. When I figure out why, I will add it here.
So How Do I Use the Foil Tips set?
First of all the tips are held in the holder magnetically so they are easy to install and change in the holder. The holder fits where the regular blade holder goes. In Design Space, the drop down menu where you choose draw or score has a Foil category with three choices for the tips. When you select one it changes whatever you have selected to a gold line drawing. You can change the color like you would change the pen color. If you are putting it on something you need to attach it like it was a drawing.
When you go to make it, take out the blade holder and insert the tool. Before you load the mat, cut the foil sheet to a bit larger than the foiled area. If the foil touches the mat, it will leave foil because of the sticky. It comes off the mat with a baby wipe. Tape the foil down with the tape included or any low tack tape. You only have a couple of paper choices when foiling. It will not let you select glitter paper or thinner papers. Just select whatever paper will work. When it is done with the foiling it will stop and tell you to remove the foil. DO NOT UNLOAD THE MAT. Once the foil is removed, put the blade holder back in (or whatever you need next) and press the C to continue.
Helpful Suggestions For the Foil Tips Set
Firstly, try to put the area you want to foil in the middle of the mat. It is easier to remove the fol and then cut out the piece if the foil is not taped to the very top of the mat.
Also if you want to use two different colors of foil, the machine will stop before it starts the second color and tell you to change the foil.
Like I mentioned earlier , the bold tip crinkled the foil every time I tried to use it. I think the solution is taping it down tighter.
Remember!!! DO NOT REMOVE THE MAT BETWEEN FOILING AND CUTTING. This will mess up the alignment.
Keep your leftover foil. It works with a normal ball point pen too and you can use it on three dimensional things that wont fit in the Cricut, although the pressure is tricky.