diy washi tape - not exactly practical, but oh-so-pretty.

I had fun making washi tape last night.  It's not "real" washi tape, which is a bummer, because you can't get that lovely torn edge look, but it's pretty and you can cut with slanted ribbon edges and make it out of any sort of paper you have on hand.  And that's fun in my book.

I used some tissue paper (the black and white polka dots), wrapping paper (the red and brown gingham), and printable scrapbooking paper (pretty much everything else).  I printed most of mine, for free, from Starsunflower Studio which actually has a variety of free, printable paper and other things.  The paper I used is from the Cottage Memories Free Kit Part 3, and when I stumbled upon this bundle of free printable paper, I knew I had to make even more, so I'll get started on that...

The tutorial I used was from Crafting a Green World, which was mostly because that's where I ended up first.  It's not a bad tutorial.  Really easy, and super pretty, but I do have to say that it isn't entirely practical to use wax paper as backing.  As it wasn't exactly invented for this purpose, it doesn't always cooperate smoothly when you go to peel it off.  It hasn't bee awful, but I will say you should always try to cut your tape off so that you leave a bit of backing poking out, which will make it easier to peel off.  However, if it just tears as you're peeling it, then... I don't have a lot of help for you there.  I haven't figured out what to do in that instance either.  It could also be that I wasn't using natural wax paper like the instructions suggest?  So, keep that in mind, too.

In the end, I think it just would have been easier to use double sticky tape that had a backing on it already and I would have used that had I known it existed. I would really recommend a tutorial like this one, perhaps, from Nifty Thrifty Things.

Anyway, it is super fun and I'm definitely going to make more as soon as I get my hands on the pre-backed tape.  To make the spools I have here, I just covered cardboard DMC embroidery floss spools in scrapbooking paper, which I also wouldn't recommend unless you use something stronger than rubber cement, but I'll be careful with them and maybe the paper will stick for a while! ;)