I’ve discovered over the past several weeks that getting clean laser printed results with vellum isn’t as easy as I had hoped it would be. So far, I’ve tried printing on three brands of vellum : Silhouette, Ampad, and Strathmore. To be fair, the Silhouette vellum is geared more toward die cutting and doesn’t mention printing anywhere on its packaging. However, the Ampad brand vellum, which I picked up at a big box store, and the Strathmore vellum, which I purchased from Amazon.com, both state on the packaging that they can be used with laser printers.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a clean print with any of the three brands. I tried a number of different paper settings on my printer, including the “transparency” setting, but the toner still lifted and remelted in places where it shouldn’t be on all three brands of vellum. There were still some areas where the printing was pretty clean, even though the overall print was not, so I decided to try and foil a sheet of the Strathmore vellum* to see what the results would be.
After less than stellar results with actual vellum, I remembered that I had some matte Dura-Lar that I use to cut stencils with my digital die cutting machine. Duralar is a polyester film that’s billed as an acetate alternative, and it’s much smoother than any of the brands of vellum that I tested. It’s sort of an acetate / vellum hybrid (at least the matte type is), and I figured that it would be a great candidate for printing and foiling since it does have a number of different qualities that are acetate-like. If you’ve watched my video about making print and cut foil acetate embellishments, then you know what great results you can get with clear acetate.
* A number of Amazon.com reviews of the Strathmore laser vellum state that it printed cleanly, so it may just be that my printer doesn’t agree with it.
Check out the video below to see my results, both with the vellum and with the Dura-Lar:
The following supply list contains affiliate links. I make a small commission if you purchase through these links, and I really appreciate it if you do!
AMZ = Amazon.com SBK = Scrapbook.com DKB = Dick Blick SSS = Simon Says Stamp
Love Always SVG Digital Stamps + Border Die Cuts
Vellum-Type Papers Tested
Silhouette Vellum ( AMZ // SSS )
Ampad Vellum (purchased from big box store)
Strathmore Laser Vellum
Grafix Matte .005 Dura-Lar Film – 9″ x 12″ (recommended)
Other Supplies
Heidi Swapp Minc Foil Applicator 12″ ( AMZ // SBK )
Heidi Swapp Minc Foil Applicator 6″ ( AMZ // SBK )
Heidi Swapp Minc Reactive Foil, Rose Gold
Heidi Swapp Minc Reactive Foil, Teal
Heidi Swapp Minc Reactive Foil, White
Silhouette Cameo ( AMZ // SBK )
a laser printer
plain printer paper
craft scissors
