What is the Cricut Foil Transfer System?

Are you ready to add some SHINE to your Cricut projects? Find out all about the Cricut Foil Transfer System, the new pressure-activated foiling system that works with your Cricut machines!

If you’ve been wanting to apply foil details to your Cricut projects, look no further! Cricut has released their own Foil Transfer System, which is the easiest way to embellish cards, gifts, jewelry, art prints, and more with FOIL!

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What is the Foil Transfer System from Cricut?

The Foil Transfer System is a PRESSURE-activated foiling system that is designed to work specifically within Cricut Design Space to add foil details to all of your projects. It is placed in your machine like a cutting blade and presses the foil onto the material.

What does the Foil Transfer System Come With?

The Cricut Foil Transfer Kit comes with a housing and 3 tips to apply Fine, Medium, and Bold foil details to a variety of materials.

Each tip is marked with one, two, or three lines near the end. One line = Fine, Two lines = Medium, Three lines = Bold.

The kit also comes with a sample of silver and gold foil transfer sheets to practice with.

In addition, Cricut is launching 12×12″ sheets of silver and gold foil, as well as a Jewel Sampler pack of 4×6″ foil that includes Green, Purple, and Aqua.

All packages of Cricut Foil Transfer Sheets come with proprietary tape that will hold the foil onto your material.

What Cricut Machines Can I Use with the Foil Transfer System?

One of the best features of the Foil Transfer System is that it is backwards compatible – meaning that it will work with older Cricut machines, too. The foil tips will work with the Cricut Explore Series as well as with Cricut Maker, and I’ve used it successfully with both machines! Unfortunately the foil tip housing will not work with Cricut Joy.

What Kind of Foil Can I Use with the Cricut Foil Tips?

There are a few different kinds of craft foil that are currently on the market. Cricut has developed a particular kind of foil that is activated by pressure. Other types include Toner Reactive (as what is in a Laser Printer) or Heat Activated foil. These types of foil are not formulated to work with the Cricut Foiling Tips.

I have tested Heat Activated foil with the Cricut Foil Transfer System and although it does transfer, the results are not nearly as clean as with using the Cricut brand foil. I’m definitely going to explore it more, though! I need ALL the colors of foil!

What Materials Will Work with the Foil Transfer System from Cricut?

Cricut has tested and provides settings for these materials right now:

• Kraft Board
• Cardstock (Light, Medium, Heavy, and Adhesive Backed)
• Faux Leather
• Clear Printable Sticker Paper
• Deluxe Scrapbook Paper
• Foil Embossed Deluxe Paper
• Heavy Watercolor Paper
• Pearl Paper
• Vellum
• Printable Vinyl

I’m definitely going to experiment with more materials, but those listed above are proven to work with your Cricut Explore or Maker. I’ve had particularly good luck so far with transferring the foil to kraft board, card stock, and faux leather.

What Can I Make with the Cricut Foil System?

You can add foil to any project that uses the above materials! This includes cards, invitations, gifts, stickers, art prints, and more!

Here are the tutorials that I’ve posted:

• Foil Plant Art Prints – the cutest set of 4 prints for home decor
• Easy Thank You Card

What Kind of Files Work with the Foil System?

The tips are designed to work especially well with Single Line Type files. If you’ve never heard of Single Line, Draw, or Sketch SVG files, check out this post: How to Use Single Line SVG Files.

You can download this Happy Birthday single line SVG for FREE to test out your foiling system: Happy Birthday Tag Single Line SVG File.

Here are some sites I’ve found that have Single Line files that you can download to work well with the foil transfer in Cricut Design Space:

• Pineapple Paper Co. (I have a whole section in my shop dedicated to Single Line files, with more to come!)
• Design Bundles (like this amazing single line elements bundle)
• Creative Fabrica
• Cricut Design Space (you can filter search results by “Draw Only” files)

There are a lot of Draw files available with Cricut Access – now’s a great time to subscribe!

Cricut Foil Transfer Tips vs. Foil Quill

Now for the big question: how is the Cricut Foil Transfer System different from the We R Memory Keepers Foil Quill?

• The Foil Quill is heat based and therefore needs a power source during the process of transferring foil to your material. The Cricut Foil Transfer System is pressure-activated, and doesn’t need to be connected to power.
• Due to the need for a heat source, the Cricut Foil Transfer System uses pressure-activated foil, and the Foil Quill uses heat-activated foil. They are similar but obviously different in application.
• The Foil Quill can be used in any electronic cutting machine (it comes with adapters for varying machines), where as the Cricut Foil Transfer System is specifically designed to fit in Cricut Machines.
• There is no specific setting for the Foil Quill in any of the cutting machine software – you have to choose the “Draw” setting. When using the Foil Transfer System with your Cricut and Cricut Design Space, you can choose “Foil” settings that will work seamlessly with the system to prompt you when to apply foil and which tip to use. That means you can use it in the middle of your other projects, including cut, score, emboss, and more!

Review of the Cricut Foil Transfer System

I have used both the Foil Quill and Cricut Foil Transfer System at length, and here are my conclusions!

Things I Like About the Cricut Foil Transfer Kit:

• No heat required is a BIG plus. I was dreadfully afraid of having to put the little heat guard plate underneath the Foil Quill at risk of ruining my machine, and I’m a clumsy crafter. I burn myself easily.
• In addition to burn risks, I felt like it was always a hassle to monitor the power source cord for the Foil Quill. No cords for the Cricut System – another plus!
• Works easily within Design Space – yes! Because I use my Cricut machine a lot, it is nice to have the tool and it’s own settings right inside the program. I don’t have to think about when to attach the foil and what order I need to make a project – Design Space handles all of that. I think this is especially important for new Cricut users!
• Because the Foil System is integrated with Design Space, all of the designs that you can draw in Design Space, you can foil! Cricut has been adding a ton of single line files to Design Space. No USB drives to lose – I like this, too!
• All of the tips insert into one housing – no keeping track of separate pens, just press down on the housing and change the tips.
• The level of detail I was able to achieve with the fine tip was awesome. I’m really impressed by it!

This was the file that I first tested with the Fine Foil Tip. I love it! And it’s already hanging in my office.

Things I Don’t Love About the Cricut Foil Transfer System:

• There aren’t a lot of foil color options available yet – but they will be launching more. I need ALL of the colors – give me PINK, please!
• When I was testing various materials (all approved to work with the foil system by Cricut), I ran into trouble with the foil tearing, especially with the “Medium” tip. I know others that haven’t had the same problems. I did NOT notice this problem when using the textured side of regular Cricut cardstock.
• I also noticed that the “Bold” tip didn’t transfer as evenly as the other tips. You can see it in the lettering and pineapples I transferred onto this piece of navy cardstock:

It’s minimal, but there is a difference.

Should You Buy a Cricut Foil Transfer Kit?

If you make a lot of paper crafts with your Cricut (like I do!), I think the Cricut Foil Transfer System is a good tool to have in your craft room. I personally am excited to use it for Christmas and Holiday cards and gifts – foiled Cricut Christmas cards? YES, please! It will also be great to use for art prints (look out for those coming on the blog soon!) and even foil details on jewelry. And at the low price point, I think it’s an easy price to add some professional looking details to crafts you’re already making!

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