Cameo 4 Foil Quill Alternative

Hi Everyone!

This week I wanted to share with you another brand of heated foil quill that you can use with your Cameo 4. It comes with an adapter specifically designed to fit the Cameo 4 machine. I found it on Amazon a few weeks ago and I decided to try it out.

Craft Express Heat Foil Pen Scrapbooking Tool with USB Cable for Cricut Maker Explore,Silhouette Cameo 4 Plus Pro,for Cards Leather Craft Making

Craft Express

Buy on Amazon

For now, it looks like it’s only available with one tip size. It seems similar to the medium tip foil quill from We R Memory Keepers.

Note: The adapter that comes with this does NOT fit the We R Memory Keepers Foil Quills.

I placed the foil quill in slot 1 in my Cameo 4 carriage and plugged it in. This foil quill still needs to be plugged into a USB power source like the We R Memory Keepers Foil Quills. I used one of my small portable chargers.

The pen temperature can supposedly be set to 2 different levels. I’m not sure how that works, when I plug it in the switch has a red light or green light. For this initial testing, I have it on the green light.

I have some simple concentric circles that I made in Silhouette Studio to test it out. I’m using some heavy cardstock and the We R Memory Keepers Gold Foil.

After giving it a few minutes to warm up, I loaded my mat into the machine and pressed Send.

I used the Heavy Coverstock material setting, force of 5, speed 2. You might need to play around with the settings depending on your materials. It didn’t tear the foil at all and it did a really nice job of foiling!

After it was done, I turned off the quill and removed it from my machine. Warning!! It gets much hotter than the We R Memory Keepers foil quill, even with the adapter around it. Be very careful when handling it, even if you just unplugged it. It even made slot 1 of my machine very warm, so I’m not sure if I would use it for a long period of time.

Other than that, it did a really nice job. My only wish is that they would offer additional tip sizes like a fine tip and a bold tip.

Silhouette Portrait 3 and the WRMK Foil Quill

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Hi Everyone! A few months ago I finally crossed over and got a Silhouette Portrait 3, and I love it!! It works like I always thought my Cricut should work.

Last week I tried the Spellbinders Glimmer Foil with the WRMK Foil Quill in my Cricut Maker. The results weren’t great on cardstock, but it looked really nice on my clear sticker paper. So this week, I decided to try it on my Portrait 3 because I can adjust the speed and pressure with the Foil Quill, unlike the Cricut.

I have to use the D adapter for the Foil Quill with the Portrait 3, the usual A adapter for Silhouette doesn’t fit the newer machines.

Use Adapter D for the Silhouette Portrait 3.

First I tried the regular copper metallic foil on my favorite black cardstock. I’m using the Standard Grip mat with a Force of 22 and Speed 2. It looks fantastic!

Copper Foil, Medium Foil Quill Tip

Then I tried the regular gold foil, also on black cardstock. It looks pretty nice, there are a few spots where the foil didn’t stick great, but I might not have had my foil taped down tight enough (very important when foiling).

Gold Foil, Medium Foil Quill Tip

Next I tried the Silver iridescent foil with the same Force of 22, Speed 2. It looks sooooooo much better than it did on my Cricut Maker! There are a couple fo spots where the foil didn’t stick so I’m going to try a few more settings.

Iridescent Silver, Medium Foil Quill Tip

I tried a bunch of different pressures and speeds, but none of them are as good as the Force 22, speed 2.

Iridescent Silver, Medium Tip, different pressures and speeds

I also tried the gold holographic foil, it did much better on the the Portrait 3 than with my Cricut Maker, but there are still a few spots where it didn’t stick to the cardstock.

Gold Holographic Foil, Medium Foil Quill Tip

Then I wanted to try it on some black vinyl for stickers. It came out pretty good, but there are some gaps in the solid hearts.

Gold Holographic Foil, Medium Tip on Black Adhesive Vinyl

I changed the fill for the solid hearts from just diagonal lines to a crosshatch fill. Which is SUPER EASY to do in Silhouette Studio, and the results are much better!

Silver Iridescent Foil, Medium Tip on Black Adhesive Vinyl

I wanted to try using the Light Grip mat since the backing of the vinyl sticks a lot to the Standard Grip mat. The Light Grip mat is slightly thicker than the Standard Grip and it’s just enough difference that no matter what force I use, it’s too much and it even melted my vinyl.

Silver Iridescent Foil, Medium Tip on Black Adhesive Vinyl using Light Grip Mat

So I switched back to the Standard Mat and it works much better! There are still some little gaps where the foil didn’t cover, so I decided to do a test with the Bold Tip Quill to see if it gets better coverage with the filled shapes.

Gold Holographic Foil, Medium Tip using crosshatch fill

Yes! The Bold Tip does an even better job with the filled shapes!

Gold Holographic Foil, Bold Tip using crosshatch fill

Silver Iridescent Foil, Bold Tip using crosshatch fill

One final test with the Bold Tip on cardstock. I ended up having to switch my mat to the Light grip mat, I wasn't getting enough pressure with the Standard mat. The Bold Tip gives a really nice flat fill, but I think I like the Medium tip better for lettering.

Gold Holographic Foil, Medium Tip using crosshatch fill, Light Grip Mat

An important lesson learned this week is that the cutting mat can have a really big impact on the outcome of the project!

Silver Iridescent Foil, Bold Tip using crosshatch fill. Top is using the Light Grip Mat. Bottom is using the Standard Grip Mat.

Spellbinders Glimmer Foil with the WRMK Foil Quill

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Hi Everyone! Last week I tried out the Spellbinders Glimmer foils with the Cricut Foil Transfer tool and my Cricut Maker, and I got some pretty decent results. This week I want to try the foils with my WRMK Foil Quills since they are actually intended to be hot foils. So here we go!

I am most excited to try the holographic foils. They transferred okay with the Cricut Foil Transfer tool, but the holographic effects were kind of lost.

I started out with the gold glittery foil on my heavy white cardstock with the medium foil quill. There are some little spots where the foil didn't transfer completely, especially in my filled shapes. But you can see the glittery effect much more that you could with the foil transfer tool.

I tried it out again on black cardstock with some different single line drawings. Again, some spots where it didn’t completely. The holographic effect was also not as noticeable on the black cardstock. So overall, the gold holographic glitter didn’t do great on cardstock.

Next I tried the silver holographic foil on black cardstock. Also, some spots where it didn’t transfer completely, especially in the filled shapes. But you can see the iridescent effect, especially when you hold the card at an angle. It’s really difficult to capture in a photo, but the iridescence is there!

Then I tried the regular metallics. First, the copper on black cardstock, still with the medium tip. It transferred BEAUTIFULLY!!

After that I tried the gold on my heavy white cardstock. It also worked beautifully!

I decided to give the holographic foils one last shot on some glossy clear sticker paper. First, I tried the gold holographic glitter with the medium tip. It transferred REALLY well to the sticker paper, and you can see sparkly holgraphic effect. (again, super difficult to photograph, but it looks really good in person).

Finally, my personal favorite, the silver holographic foil on the clear sticker paper. It is so pretty and transferred perfectly.

Overall, the holographic foils didn’t work great on cardstock, but they are gorgeous on my clear sticker paper. The regular metallics worked really well on cardstock, I didn’t test them on the sticker paper, but I imagine they would work great on that as well.

I’m really excited to try these foils with my Silhouette Portrait 3 machine where I can actually adjust the speed and pressure for the foil quill. I will post about that next week!

Filled Shapes and Words with the Foil Quill and Cricut Maker

Hi Everyone! This week is a continuation of last week’s post. I’m testing my Happy Birthday filled SVG file and some filled shapes with my We R Memory Keepers Foil Quill.

After last week’s tutorial I still wanted to try my filled SVG design with my We R Memory Keepers Foil Quill. So I gave it a try and the results were pretty nice, but still not as great as I had hoped. I have a love hate relationship with my Foil Quill, sometimes it gets the job done fine, other times I get very uneven results. I wasn’t sure if it was me, the foil quills, my cardstock, or a combination of everthing. My fine point tip has always had some weird corrosion on the metal tip, I have never used it because it scares me. But by the time I had opened and tried out my set I was way past any return policies, so I just kept it and and mainly used the medium and bold tip. The medium tip is my usual go to, but I feel like I was always getting spotty/ uneven results. I don’t know if there’s something wrong with the wiring or what. I would feel the plastic around the metal tip after heating it up for 10 minutes and it felt slightly warm, but not really hot. I had better results with my bold tip, but sometimes I want a finer line.

So long story short, JoAnn’s had the Foil Quill set on sale this weekend for 60% off, so I bought another set just to test it. I think my old set was a dud, the new set gets much hotter, no corrosion on any of the tips and it works SO much better!

The WRMK foil quill is my new favorite for filling in words and shapes! (Sorry Cricut Foil Transfer Tool.)

I tried out my Happy Birthday filled SVG that I made last week. It’s so pretty in person, photos don’t do it justice! Keep in mind that this technique will never be flat that foiling with a laser printer and laminator. But I kind of like the texture the foil quill gives.

Medium Tip, Rose Gold Foil

Medium Tip, Rose Gold Foil

Then I tested all 3 tips that came in my set. Each tip was tested with a 1 inch square and 1 inch star. I wanted to see how the tips did with different spacing between the lines. I tried them with lines spaced 1 point apart, 1.5 points apart and 2 points apart.

I wish Cricut Design Space had an easy way to do fills like the Silhouette software. I had to make all of my fills in Illustrator and import them as SVGs into Design Space.

Fine Tip Foil Quill

The fine tip is not great if you want a more solid fill. It ended up tearing the foil sheet while it was transferring. But it did a gorgeous job with the lines spaced 2 points apart. Something keep in mind if you want an engraved or etched look to your design.

Ripped foil sheet from the Fine Point quill

Fine Tip, Rose Gold Foil

Fine Tip, 2 point space between lines

Medium Tip Foil Quill

The medium tip is probably my favorite for a solid fill. I like the medium tip best with the lines spaced 1 point apart. I personally like the linear texture and it gives my design a little bit more dimension.

Sorry, the foils are really hard to photograph and this photo doesn’t really do it justice. It’s really beautiful in person!

Here it is at a bit of an angle, so pretty!

Stunning on black cardstock too!

Bold Tip Foil Quill

The bold tip gives the smoothest and flatest fill, it would be my second choice for this technique.

Bold Tip, Rose Gold Foil

Bold Tip, Rose Gold Foil

Bold Tip, Gold Foil

Bold Tip, Gold Foil