Custom foil stickers, stamped and embossed

For gold foil stickers, kraft and black are the two strongest grounds: kraft warms the gold, black makes it the brightest thing on the sheet. Our standard foils are gold, copper, silver, matte black and holographic. The sample kit's hot foil swatch card shows the 40 foils we keep on the shelf.

Three things to know before you pick:

• Black foil on black paper is a sheen. You'll see it only when the sticker tips toward the light. It's a lovely quiet mark for a black box, and the wrong choice for anything that has to be read.
• Holographic wants a smooth surface. On textured paper the rainbow breaks up and looks softer than the sample. We'd put it on smooth white stock.
• Big solid foil shows the paper. A fully foiled circle on textured stock picks up the texture and can show tiny gaps. If you want a mirror-like solid, tell us and our press team checks it before we promise it.

We'd price it with everything first, then scale back to the number that makes sense for your run.

1. Standard round, one foil, embossed. A 1.5 in or 2 in round on kraft, black or uncoated paper, from $195 for 250. This is the one we'd pick for most brands. It closes a box, seals tissue and sits on a jar lid, and it's the fixed-price option.
2. Custom shape. We cut a die to your mark's own outline: a crest, an oval, a wordmark. Quoted, because the die is made for you.
3. Two foils, or foil plus one ink. A second foil sits beside the first, never stacked on it, and ink stays clear of the foil. Quoted, because each foil is its own die and press pass.

Our advice: the second foil rarely earns its cost on a sticker this size. One foil with a good emboss usually reads as more expensive than two foils fighting for 1.5 inches.

The 1.5 in round is the size the eye reads as a seal. The 2 in round gives a wordmark room to breathe. Every sticker arrives kiss-cut on a sheet: the blade cuts through the label and its adhesive and stops at the backing, so each one peels with a fingernail and none fall off in transit.

For a custom shape, give the outline soft corners. A sharp point is the first thing to lift once someone runs a thumb over it, and the cutting blade can't turn a razor-sharp inside corner anyway, so we round those slightly. Custom shapes larger than 5 × 7 in need their own die quote.

Foil is binary: an area is fully foiled or it's bare paper. On a sticker this small, these rules decide whether your mark survives:

• Lines and gaps at least 0.6 mm. Thinner foil breaks up on press, and narrower gaps fill in.
• Foil type at 7 pt or larger (8 pt is safer, 10 pt when the type is knocked out of a foil shape). Anything smaller moves to ink or comes out.
• No gradients, shadows or photos. Each foil becomes one solid tone.
• Keep foil 3 mm inside the cut line, or run it past. A foil ring that stops 1 mm from the edge of a round looks off-centre once the cut shifts slightly.
• Matte black foil needs bigger type. Black foil closes up the insides of small letters sooner than metallic foil, so keep small text in a black-foil mark larger, or set it in ink.
• QR codes print in flat ink, never foil or emboss, so phones can read them. Ink means a foil-plus-ink build, which we quote.
• Vector artwork is best. If you only have a PNG or an AI image, our designers rebuild it as clean vector for the die.

You don't need to get this perfect yourself. A person checks every file before the die is made and tells you, in one line, anything we changed and why. For the long version, read our foil artwork guide, or let our label artwork service draw it to the die.

• Box seals. One foil sticker across the lid seam of a custom gift box or a stock mailer turns a plain box into yours.
• Tissue closures. The sticker that holds the tissue shut is the first thing your customer breaks. Tissue is thin, so when the box is opened the tissue tears and the sticker stays put. Pair it with our packaging inserts and tissue.
• Jar and candle lids. A 1.5 in round fits most lids.
• Hang tags and bags. Use the same foil on your hang tags, so the kit matches.
• Envelope backs. For wedding and event envelopes, our foil seals page covers suite-matched seals and how they hold up in the mail.

• Wet, cold or oily surfaces. Our foil stickers are paper. They aren't for a bottle that sits in an ice bucket, a jar that lives in the fridge, or anything that gets wiped down. Those need a film label, which we quote on our labels page.
• Full-colour artwork. A photo or a gradient can't be foiled. Our custom stickers page covers printed, clear and holographic options.
• A few dozen stickers for this week. Making a foil die and setting up the press is the same work for 50 stickers as for 250. Below our minimum, stock craft-store seals are honestly the better buy.

For product labels with ingredients and small print, see our foil labels.