As most weekends approach I try to come up with some project - something other than cleaning, working, and sitting around watching tv - to test out in my free time.

This weekend I decided to give gold leafing a try with some sketches. Keep in mind, I am (unfortunately) not a patient person. If I'm not decent with some technique, medium, or style in the first one or two tries, it takes a lot of discipline for me to come back for the third... which is why I probably won't be trying gold leafing again.

I'm sure there's some magic to getting crisp edges, but I haven't found it. I sketched some words on cardstock, painted over the to-be-gold words with the adhesive, laid the sheet of gold leaf on top of the adhesive (once it was dry and sticky), rubbed it gently a couple times, and let it dry for two hours. When I removed the wax backer and used a dry brush to remove the excess gold from around the words, I was less than impressed. Handmade is one thing... this looked sloppy.

That said, there's a lovely technique I've read about that I'll be trying next. Instead of this old-school gold leaf / adhesive concoction, it involves toner reactive foil, a laser jet printer, a laminator, and (hopefully) much cleaner results. Bad news : I have to order the foil, laminator (more to come on my hunt for a cheap solution), and I have to remember to print my designs (which will most likely be digitally crafted now) on the laser printer at work before leaving for a weekend of gold foiling. Worth it? We'll see!

Gold leaf attempt