I made my own washi tape

There are several kinds of trends in paper crafting.   

• Images -  bikes, silhouettes, owls, pennants, or hot air balloons.  
• Shapes - chevrons and hexagons. 
• Tools - Distress inks, stains and markers, misting inks, templates, vinyl, die cutting machines (electric and otherwise).
• Materials - shipping tags, twine, crocheted flowers, wooden die cuts and washi tape.

Back when the trendy material was ribbon I purchased a lot of ribbon. A LOT of ribbon. But I was never great at tying pretty bows so I didn't use it much. I have boxes of ribbon that just sit on the shelf waiting for a design that requires their assistance.

The trend I am currently loving is washi tape. I don't have much but it is so easy to use, no tying required. But washi can be expensive for a cheapskate. Because I am always looking for ways to create crafts for less I have turned to other types of  tape to see if I could make my own washi.







This card was made with washi from K & Company (EK Success) for use with their Smash books. The rest of the materials on this card are from my scrap drawer. The paper is also K& Company. The sentiment is from the dollar bin at Micheal's it originally read "cutie pie" with an image of a slice of pie. The doily is from the dollar store. The ducky has been in my collection for nine years.  I purchased it for my son's first birthday party invitations, but that's a different story for a different time.

The image on this card is from the Recollections set Zoo-licious. I was just playing with this image. I colored the spots with a white crayon and made a mask for the head, tail and legs and spritzed. Then I masked the shell as well and spritzed again. Then I scrapped off the crayon and shaded the legs, head and tail with Copics.

The card sat for a couple of days before I decided to add the tapes. It just looked undone, too plain. Now it looks done.

The same washi I used on the first card was laid down first. I then laid down a tape I created with cloth medical tape and stamped with the flower from the Papertrey Ink Up, Up and Away stamp set. The cloth tape takes dye and alcohol  inks well. The leaves were made but just touching a Copic marker to the tape, it automatically bleeds just enough to look like a leaf. 

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 The next card uses the same tape with a different stamp. This time it's Lawn Fawn's Critters on the Farm set. I stamped the fence on the tape that was stuck on my craft mat. I wish I had stamped it on the card itself because when I stuck it down the fence kind of took a western slant.

The images are colored with Copic markers. The white coloring comes from a paint marker on the cow and a gel pen on the barn. The cow bell is colored with a silver pen.

Given the success of using cloth medical tape I decided to give the paper version a try. I didn't stamp on this one I kind of like the tonal difference. This card was also made with stuff from my scrap drawer. Next time I'll be stamping on the paper tape to see how that looks.

This weekend I purchased a few more rolls of washi at Archivers. They had designs that will work well on Christmas cards.

Happy Crafting,

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