Your Decorative Tape "Fix": DIY!

What?!  Two weeks since my last decorative tape post?  Surely it's time to talk about tape again!

I have written about all the different kinds of decorative tapes I have purchased, as well as how I store them, and the various ways I have discovered to create them myself:

• from book text
• from business envelope liners
• from ribbons

Recently, I read an article by Carolyn Dube in the March/April 2012 Somerset Studio about painting and stamping on artist tape.  Artist tape is basically like low tack masking tape that is white.  I happened to have some in my stash, so I decided to give her technique a try.  I didn't have any acrylic inks, such as she used, so I decided to try my alcohol inks to see what would happen.

This photo shows my workspace all set up:  roll of artist tape, applicator tool, replacement felts, Adirondack alcohol inks, and tapes stretched out on wax paper:

I declared my first attempt at this approach to DIY tape a "non-success":

The ink bubbled and the colors were kind of ugly.

Then I remembered reading somewhere (I don't remember where!) that First Aid tape used for holding gauze in place makes for great DIY tape.  I had bought some a long time ago for that very purpose, but had not yet tried it.  So to the linen closet I went:

This kind of tape took the alcohol inks much more successfully:

While I liked the solid color tapes quite well, I also enjoyed the effect of droplets of alcohol inks left to spread and blend on the tape on their own:

The "wow" factor for me came when I added rubber stamp images with black Staz On ink:

I continued to experiment by coloring the tapes with acrylic paint, but the alcohol inks came out best of all.  The next time I hit JoAnn with a stack of coupons, I'll be purchasing some liquid acrylic inks to try out the method Dube shared in her Somerset Studio article.

You know you want to try this!