Let's Play: Make your own washi tapes from masking tape

Carolyn Dube's new Let's Play challenge this month is to use products from the hardware store as art supplies. One of my favourite products from the hardware store is masking tape. They come in different width and even colours. I normally just use them in my projects for texture and simply paint over them, but you can also decorate them to make your own washi tapes.

In order to make washi tapes, you'll have to tear different length of masking tape and adhere them to a piece of paper with a semi-porous surface. I find the waxed side of deli paper is perfect for this. The tapes stick well to the paper temporarily, but you can easily peel them off when needed.

Here are three techniques you can try.

1. Stamping with archival inks

This is a very simple process and perfect for using your background stamps, but it can also work with certain image stamps.  In my examples I used black archival ink for stamping. You can use pieces of these tapes for collage either on top of your artwork or layer over them. 

2. Gelli printing

You can also gelli print on pieces of masking tape. In order to do this, it's best if you temporarily adhere your tape to a sheet of deli paper (as above).  I used a mini gelli plate to stamp paint directly on my tapes (rather than putting them face down on the gelli plate). I applied some Golden Open medium to facilitate this process. I wrote about this technique in more detail in this post. You can even apply the paint over your stamped tapes for added texture. Once the paint is dry, you can just peel off the tapes and transfer them onto a clean sheet of deli paper for storage. Here are some of the tapes I made with this method. 

3. Staining with alcohol inks

You could use any ink for this method, but I like alcohol inks because they are waterproof when dry and have a special look about them. I just dripped a few drops of alcohol ink on my tapes and mingled them with some clear alcohol. Here are the results.

As a by-product, I got this really cool background pattern on my original deli paper. You can see how the inks seeped under the tapes but still preserved their outlines.

I hope you enjoyed my post and feel inspired to try some of these techniques. You can join Carolyn's link party too! Just click on the link below and it will take you there! You don't need to follow the challenge - you can link any of your inspiring projects!