Making Deco Tape with Decorative Napkins

In a recent post, I shared how I used decorative tape to "dress up" regular office-store binder clips.  I alluded to the fact that I had created some decorative tape from napkins, so I thought I would let you know the very simple process for making it. 

Let me emphasize that I did not think this up myself.  I read about it somewhere, but did not take note of the source.  Seems like everyone is coming up with all sorts of ideas for creating low-cost decorative tape! 

For this particular approach, you only need three supplies:

Scissors, decorative napkin, and double-sided tape

 

I purchased the double-sided tape at a rubber stamp show, rather than at a store, so I'm not exactly sure where you can find it.  It unrolls to be sticky on one side, but the adhesive on the other side is covered.  I have used it for my handmade envelopes, so that users can unpeel and seal the envelopes at a later date. 

Step 1:  Unpeel the back layer of a decorative napkin.  You will only be using the decorative half for this project.

Step 2:  Lay the double-sided adhesive, sticky-side down, on the back of the decorative napkin.

Step 3:  Cut the napkin along the lines of the double-sided tape.  You can see one piece of tape that I have already cut to the left of the tape I am currently cutting here.

Here are examples of the decorative tape you will have created:

You are obviously limited:  your tape will be the width of the napkin.  But that is generally plenty long to embellish an envelope, letter, or art journal page. 

To store the tape along with my store-bought decorative tape, I wound it around and clipped it with a tiny little mini-clothespin...adorable and useful!

I'm using the scissors here to give you a sense of the tiny scale of the clothespin.

When you start thinking about decorative napkins for art journal pages and decorative tapes, you'll never walk through a party store in the same frame of mind again!