If you’ve been on the hunt for wedding invitations, there’s a pretty good chance you have come across many with images of shiny gold or silver metallic designs pressed into a variety of cotton and other stationery paper. It’s breathtaking, romantic, and it will definitely have you take a second glance or maybe even more. This is called foil stamping, and it adds an elegant layer of formal simplicity to your invitation suite. 

A tradition making a come back

Traditional foil stamping is the best way to get a true metallic on your invitation. This process involves creating magnesium or copper die that presses foil onto paper. The die is heated and that enables the foil to release onto the page. If you are using thicker stationery stock, this is works wonders! The foil can be pressed into the page or it can make an almost imperceptible indentation – depending upon the needs of the project.

Most foil is completely opaque so we can use white foil or metallic foil on any darker paper and the result is quite striking. However, some foil is translucent, like our pearl, and is perfect for adding a subtle highlight gloss to graphics.

Magnesium plates hold detail well so they are the way to go with extremely ornate or small details. Whereas copper can’t be as detailed but it does hold up longer if the die will be used multiple times over its lifespan.