Technique Thursday - Make Your Own Patterned Tape with Gail

Hello.  Gail here today with an oldie but goodie technique.  Actually, one of my teamies said she had never tried this so I thought it might be a fun idea to re-explore.  I had forgotten how fun it is to grab some tape, some paint, some inks and stamps and make something unique and special.  Making your own tape also means you can colour and theme match to your project.  

Here's one of the two cards I have made so far using my hand made tape 

and the gorgeous Giraffe stamp.  

I started by sticking some tape to the back of my cutting mat.  From the top, 1 and 2 are blue painters tape and 3, 4, 5 and 6 are masking tape.  Then basically you colour your tape and stamp away with different colours and stamps until you are happy with the result.  Rubber Dance stamp sets contain so many small detailed stamps you are sure to find the perfect ones to fit your projects, or use part of a large stamp to add interesting patterns.  Details of what I did are below.  Alternatively, just skip to the pretty cards further down....

I used a variety of mediums to roughly colour the tape.  I like PaperArtsy Fresco finish paint for this cos it has a chalk finish which gives a nice 'tooth' for stamping on.  I also decided to try distress oxide ink, cos it also has a chalk finish.  So from the top, 1 Limelight fresco, 2 Rose fresco, 3 Inky Pool fresco, 4 Lilac fresco, 5 red acrylic, 6 Salty Ocean distress oxide.

On 2 I stamped the sentiment using the hello from Giraffe and the baby from Winter Wonderland and black archival ink.  Then I used gold acrylic and the small three circles stamp from Textured Flowers on 2 and 5.  On 6 I used the Giraffe stamp with black archival ink to add some 'giraffe' pattern. 

I used Salty Ocean distress oxide and the small stars from the Textured Flowers set on 2 and 4.  I also used the 'sand' stamp from Retro Beach (it's looks like a long shadow above the words 'sand between my toes' on the picture of the stamp set) with white ink on 4 to give that lovely wavy pattern.  On 3 I used two starfish with the net behind (also from the Retro Beach set) and stamped with both Salty Ocean and Mustard Seed distress oxide.  Then I used the 'sand' stamp with black archival.

For this card I used two strips of the giraffe print tape (6) and then added the pink tape (2) on top.  I actually mounted the pink tape on a card scrap and then popped it up on some foam tape.  You can see how I applied the rose paint roughly to the painters tape so some of the dark blue shows through.   The gold circles and Salty Ocean DOx stars show up nicely.  Bonus technique here to get my baby giraffe........

Did you know craft foam shrinks when heated??  I stamped Giraffe on yellow craft foam and fussy cut.  Then I added some Spiced Marmalade distress ink and heated them up.  I shrank mummy giraffe just a touch and shrank baby giraffe about as far as he would go.  As with shrink plastic the ink colours intensify when the piece is shrunked.  Unlike shrink plastic you can choose how much you want to shrink it, it stays flexible and doesn't stiick to itself.  What a cute mini me it is.......

Bonus card.......

I smeared Salty Ocean and Mustard Seed DOx on a blue card base.

I used the starfish tape (3) to make a border.  I stamped some small bubbles from Playful Penguins with white ink and rearranged two sentiments from the same set to get my greeting.  Then I stamped, embossed and fussy cut the whale to finish my scene.

Phhew, mega long post.  If you made it to the end well done you, and if you just went with the pictures then that works too.  I hope you feel like making your own tape.  It's much more fun than reading about it.  I think I'll finish a few more of these strips and I am sure they will be making an appearance in future projects. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Don't forget there are newly released stamps in the shop and free shipping on them until Saturday.   Details HERE.