How to Design Your Own Foil Business Card

A memorable, professional-looking business card can make all the difference when it comes to getting a call back on a lead about a new job or a new client. Business cards printed with foil enhancements can help you get that professional look. While getting custom business cards printed with foils is a good investment, the costs might add up quickly---especially if you plan to give out your cards regularly. Fortunately, you can get that same foil-enhanced look from home with any standard laser jet printer.

Things You'll Need

• Card stock
• Laser jet printer
• Foil transfer sheets
• Scissors
• Transparent tape
• Copier (optional)

Instructions

1. Design your business cards in a publishing software such as Microsoft Word, WordPerfect or Adobe InDesign. If you are not comfortable with designing your own business cards, most of these programs offer predesigned templates which simply require you to plug in your information to their preset designs.

2. Print out your business cards using a laser jet printer. An inkjet printer will not work for this project, because the foil strips adhere to the toner in a laser printer, not the ink. Choose paper that is smooth, as opposed to textured. Foils will adhere better to this type of paper.

3. Cut your foil in its desired color into strips large enough to cover the area you want to add foil accents to. Use transparent tape to attach the strips of foil to your paper. Make sure you tape the foil to the paper with the shinier side up.

4. Place your foil-taped paper in the paper tray of your copier. Press "start" or "copy" to run your paper through the copier. Foils adhere with the help of the heat when you run it through the copier. If you do not have a copier, your foils should work if you run the paper through your laser jet printer.

5. Remove the card from the copier and let it stand for 30 to 40 seconds. Untape your foil and peel back your strips to reveal your foil enhancements. If your foil work is uneven, simply add a new piece of foil and repeat Step 4.