Make Your Own Faux Washi Tape!

Morning all and welcome to Tuesday!!

I have been playing around with some effects on tape to create a homemade faux washi tape and it occurred to me that I may not be the only person interested in it!

But why on earth would you bother??? Well, for one, you can customise it to any project. When you buy a roll of real washi tape, you may only need a little bit and then the roll goes in the box (with the other 47) and you wait for the day when you might need it again.

Secondly, we are not going to use inks! No really. This technique uses acrylic paint. The reason for this is that not only are the colours endless and endlessly mixable to create new ones but they are inexpensive, last forever (practically), they come in different effects - think metallics and you can also layer up light over dark. Today's project looks at white over the colours. Bliss! We will turn to the wonderful DecoArt range for today and you will see what I mean by easy and beautiful!

Take a look...

Very easy to do too and here's how....
First, gather your supplies. You will need some tape. I chose some really cheap masking tape from a discount store. Have a look around for this tape in other places too and see if you can find it in different widths. I am using a reasonably regular one. You can cut it too.
Next, grab some acrylic paints. I am using the following colours by DecoArt Americana:
Lamp Black
Cool White
Blue Harbour
Mint Julep

Now look in your stamp stash for some small scale stamps to suit the mood that you are in. Small scale is necessary because if they are too big, you will not be able to see what they are when you use them. I chose flowers, little birds, flourishes, borders and butterflies.

Finally, you need some tools - something to put water in, a paper plate as a palette, a sea sponge, #12 flat brush, nappy (wet) wipes and one of those tricky non-stick sheets.

So, here we go! Firstly, lay the tape onto the non-stick sheet.

Then put the Mint Julep paint onto the paper plate and wet the sponge. wring all of the water out and sponge the green onto the tape at random.

Wash the sponge and repeat with the Harbour Blue.

Go over again a couple of times with each colour to make the effect more subtle.

When you have the background in place, dry it and get busy with the stamps! Firstly though, prepare yourself a little 'ink pad' from the black paint. Do this directly onto the non-stick sheet and spread the paint out with the #12 flat brush. You will need to work quickly because acrylic paint dries very fast - this is both a good and a bad thing!

Simply press your chosen stamp into the paint and stamp as you would normally. You will need to wipe the paint off and refresh it occasionally. Use a wet wipe for this.

As you can see, I have made some stamps off the side of the tape and some straight, angled and so on. Now put some white paint onto the sheet and stamp right over the top....

This adds dimension, depth and interest to the piece. It looks a bit of a mess at this point but hang in there! Oh, and a word of warning, wash your stamps in cold water IMMEDIATELY as the paint will dry and ruin them!

Finally, take the tape away and wipe the sheet.  They look neater now!

Store them on a non-stick surface like a bottle. Or make them as you need them for a project. This will open up a whole new world of possibility, you will look at your stamps differently too!

Happy stamping and thanks for stopping by!

Love Debs
xxx