Make Your Own Washi Tape

Hello, hostess Tami here today!

Have you heard of Washi Tape? It's the "newest" craze and it can add a lot of style to your altered projects, cards or scrapbook pages. Washi Tape is pretty much just embellished masking tape; you can find it in dozens of colors and thousands of designs.

It can be a little pricey though, especially if you want to use multiple designs or colors for a project. So I'm going to show you how you can make your own Washi Tape.

All you need is a few basic supplies that you probably already have on hand: masking tape, waxed or parchment paper, stamps and ColorBox Archival Dye Inks.

I used the tapes I made to jazz up a plain spiral journal...

You might want to decide on a theme - either color-wise and or design-wise for your project. But one of the things I like most about Washi Tape is the HUGE assortment of colors and designs they come in and I wanted my finished project to reflect that. So I just pulled random stamps and used whatever colors I wanted to, in order to give my project an eclectic look.

Here's a step by step tutorial that will have you whipping up your own tapes in just minutes!

And here are a few hints to help make designing and creating your own tapes easier:

• Masking tapes vary, so be sure to test before you start. The tape I used came from the dollar store.
• Use clean, white paper to "mask" off the tapes you want to work on. This will keep the other tapes covered so you don't accidentally stamp on them. 
• Use more clean, white paper to gently dab off excess ink from tapes as well as ink that will pool on waxed or parchment paper. To do so, just lay sheet over stamped design and gently press; being careful not to move paper. Do this between each set of tapes you stamp to avoid getting ink where you don't want it.
• Let tapes sit about 10-15 minutes to dry completely before handling to avoid smudging and smearing.
• Tapes can be as fancy or as plain as you like. Try stamping different designs on plain masking tape using Wicked Black Dye Ink for a graphic look.
• For a vintage-inspired design, try using combinations of brown and black inks for background colors and stamped images.
• Use the Stylus & Tips when you want to create multi-color bacgrounds or stamped images. When using two or more colors to ink the background, use a different tip for each color and apply one color at a time along the tape, then use the lightest color tip to blend edges together. For stamped images in one or more color, use Stylus & Tips to apply one color to stamp in different areas, then use a new tip to apply each additional color, then again use lightest color tip to blend. Remember that you'll have to clean stamp between images to avoid contaminating your colors.
• Store your creations flat in a plastic scrapbook envelope or box. Or trim to fit and slide into page protectors.
• Have fun and experiment!

SUPPLIES:

Clearsnap Products:

• ColorBox Archival Dye Ink
• ColorBox Stylus & Tips

Other Products:

Stamps by: Memory Box, Hampton Art, Hero Arts, The {Stamps} of Life and My Sentiments Exactly

Tools:

• Masking Tape, Waxed or Parchment Paper, Scissors and White Copy Paper

Thanks for stopping by the blog today! We have NEW! projects for you EVERY day, so please come back and visit tomorrow.