Crafty bits: Making your own washi tape

Most people love bright and colourful new ways to spice up their organisers, planners and other stationery bits and bobs. Washi tape is a great way to do that! However it can be expensive to buy and to be honest, when I looked I didn't like a lot of the designs that were out there - so I set about figuring out how to make my own. Luckily, someone had already done that for me over here at CraftPassion. It's a wonderful tutorial but I adapted it slightly for my needs.

My method is really simple and requires even less materials... all you need is:

A pair of scissors, some double sided tape and some pretty tissue paper!

The basic method is the same as the one from Craft Passion, just skipping the steps where you emboss the tissue paper. I thought a step by step pictorial might be useful to some.

Step 1 - Place your tissue paper on the sticky side of your double sided tape. In the middle works best but if you have a specific pattern you want to see more, just make sure that that bit of the tissue paper is stuck down.

Step 2 - Turn the double sided tape over and either cut off the excess or (as I find easier) tear it off. If you turn the tape over so that the sticky bit is down it'll be easier for you to make sure you don't pull the tissue paper off the tape!

Step 3 - Decorate with it!

Ahh. I love it. I love the tissue paper I used - it's from Paperchase. I bought it in the sales last January and this is the perfect use for it! You get different effects based on whether you place the tissue paper shiny side up or down. Down makes a more muted washi tape which would be better for writing on I guess.

Total cost? £1 for three rolls of sticky tape from poundland, £1.50 for the Paperchase tissue paper, £1.50 for the plain tissue paper (from Tesco). Bargainous!