Make your own Washi Tape

 Make your own Washi tape.  Washi tape is Japanese paper tape that's decorated.  All the rage for art journals, art projects, scrap booking.  But what about making your own?  We used different types of tape, sticking them on plastic sheets until use. Above is my collection. 

I took a class with Jill Cardinal at Oregon Art Supply in Eugene.  We had a great deal of fun, painting our own tape and stamping with hand made stamps.

 Medical tape is see-through but also easy to tear and hard to remove from the plastic sheet.  Here's a few samples put in my tiny art journal.

Hand made stamps are my favorite.  I quickly carved this eye stamp in class.  The feather stamps, I made previously.  

I am always on the look out for good abstract design stamps and tend to over-think it.  Jill and I were playing with "random designs" and she showed me her best trick.  In her box of carving material scraps, there are many discarded designs and broken, or cut-off pieces.  They make GREAT random stamps!  Cut off a few edges and try lining them up in various ways to make repeating patterns.  Many of my "fancy" washi tape designs were made with these so called scraps. 

We played a game: on person cuts lines into a stamp section and hands it to the next person, who cuts out a piece that looks fun to stamp with.  We tried lining up the prints every which way.  See more examples on the bottom photo.

 This morning, I applied the random designs to my colored envelopes.

(The little tree stamp was made by my kids- part of a set they made for me with mushrooms and a gnome.)