AURUMLEAF
The craft of gilding — gold leaf, tools, and techniques.
From working out how many sheets a surface needs and how long the size takes to tack, to reading a karat, costing a project, and knowing how many books to buy, AurumLeaf pairs free hands-on gilding calculators with practical guides and a richly illustrated museum. Measure twice, leaf once.
Gilding Tools & Calculators
Free tools for every gilding project — leaf sheet coverage calculator, size dry-time calculator, karat color guide, gilding cost calculator, book-of-leaf quantity calculator, and leaf thickness calculator.
Leaf Sheet Coverage Calculator
Work out how many sheets of leaf a surface needs — enter the area and sheet size and add a waste allowance for overlap and trim
Size & Adhesive Dry-Time Calculator
Get a working estimate of how long a size needs to tack before gilding, and how wide the open (laying) window is — adjusted for room temperature and humidity
Gold Leaf Karat & Color Guide
Look up the gold content and typical alloy behind a karat or a named leaf color — from 24k genuine gold leaf down to composition (imitation) leaf
Gilding Cost Calculator
Add up books of leaf, size, and optional labor into a materials cost estimate for a project — total cost and cost per square foot
Book-of-Leaf Quantity Calculator
Convert a sheet count into whole books and packs to order — leaf is sold by the book, not the sheet, so this rounds up to what you'll actually buy
Gold Leaf Thickness Calculator
Turn a weight of gold and a leaf thickness into the area it can cover, using the density of gold — see how far a book of leaf really goes
Gilding Museum
Wander an immersive museum of gold leaf through history — gilded paintings and picture frames alongside the illuminated manuscripts that first put gold on the page, the domes, temples, and palace interiors gilding has covered for centuries, and the gold-ground icons of Byzantine and Orthodox tradition, each in its own gallery, so you can get to know the stories behind every gilded work: how it was made, what makes it matter, and the role gold leaf plays in it.
Tour the museum →From the Journal
Fresh guides on gilding technique, materials, tools, and history, plus practical tips for planning, sizing, laying leaf, and finishing a piece.
How Many Sheets of Gold Leaf Do You Need? Coverage Math Explained
The real arithmetic behind gilding coverage — sheet size, waste allowance, and why a moulded frame eats far more leaf than its flat area suggests.
Water Gilding vs Oil Gilding: Choosing the Right Size
Two very different adhesive systems produce two very different finishes — here's how to tell which one a project actually calls for.
Understanding Gold Leaf Karats and Color Variations
Karat is an exact fraction of gold content, but the color gilders actually choose comes from what's alloyed in alongside it.
Genuine vs Composition Leaf: What Actually Changes
Composition leaf looks convincingly gold fresh out of the book. Here's what's really different, and when that difference matters.
Budgeting a Gilding Project: What Leaf, Size, and Labor Really Cost
Leaf is usually the headline cost, but size, ground materials, tools, and labor time all shape what a gilding project really adds up to.
How Gold Leaf Is Made: From Ingot to Sheet
Gold leaf's astonishing thinness comes from a centuries-old process called goldbeating, and from a property of gold few other metals share.
Keep Learning
Practical know-how on materials and tools, plain-language explainers on sizing, water and oil gilding, and burnishing, and the history behind the craft — everything you need to dig deeper into gilding.
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