Handmade Paper Tape

There are some beautiful paper tapes (sometimes called washi tape) out on the market right now.  They have gorgeous patterns and colors, are easy to tear and apply, and, because they are paper, their surface is easy to work on top of with other materials.  They can be a bit pricey, though.  I was inspired by an article in Somerset Studio's Art and Mixed Media magazine in which an artist used white "artist's tape" (found in the fine arts section of craft stores) and turned it into patterned paper tape.  I didn't have any white artist's tape on hand, so I decided to try the same technique with masking tape. It worked! Here's how I did it...
 I applied four strips of tape to a large sheet of palette paper...you know, the kind you mix paints on and then tear off and throw away?  Next, I stamped patterns across the the tape strips using black Staz-on ink and then rubbed colored ink pads over them.  I used my heat gun to "set" the ink and now they are ready to use.  It took all of about 10 minutes to make these four pieces that are each about 18 inches long.  They pull off of the palette paper quite nicely, too.  

You can see the colored ink around the tape strips here.  I like that some of the stamped images do not fit all the way onto the tape.  


Here's a journal spread in progress in which I've used some of my handmade tape with the number pattern.  

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