Art Supply Organization: Washi Tape

1. Class Intro: commute. You, uh, Nina son. What? Tosh? She walked and yellow desk. Today's class art supply organization Washi tape features a beautiful decorative masking tape from Japan, and artist tools are invaluable, and some tools, like a camera or laptop, could be relatively easy to store and keep maintained. But other tools, such as more mundane supplies, can be easy to overlook or set aside and forget about more than Waas. I've heard myself say, Where did I put that thing for me? That's the case with Washington. The elegant Japanese masking tape washing tape is a decorative and beautiful art supply that I use in my work. It's also one of the tools that are easy to lose, track of this results and me either being unable to locate what I'm looking for or purchasing multiple roles of the same tape. And today I'll show you how I go about remedying that problem, and that is the focus of today's lessons. Aren't art supply organization Washington In today's class, I'll show you my washing tape Swatch book, where I keep track of my decorative tapes. I can bring this with me when I'm out shopping or when perusing online stores. It's a neat and quick reference tool that makes all the difference when I need to figure out what I actually own versus what's on my wish list or having to depend on my memory skills. Then I'll show you how I store my rules of washi tape as well as other decorative tapes so that I can spend my time creating art and not searching for things. I've included a peek at one of my journal pages on various washing swatch ideas, as well as links to a Pinterest board for making additional watching swatches. I've included a bonus class for making your own custom decorative tape that a similar to Washington. If you've enjoyed this class, please be sure to follow me here on skill share. And if you like to see more art supply organizational tips, please leave a note in the comments. Now let's get started looking into Washington 2. About Washi Tape: Washington is a high quality Japanese masking tape made from rice paper that has many unique properties that artists love. Washi tape can be tourney or cut. It could be written on, and it is a low tack adhesive, meaning be repositioned without damaging with substrates. It also is slightly transparent, and this varies by tape, brand color and pattern. Washi tape comes in many varieties. Many withs colors, patterns and textures. Here is a wide one. Then we have some super thin ones and even thinner ones. It comes in patterns as well. Have some floral. We have some labels here. Patterns. There's a repetitive patterns. Here is, well, the triangles. There's polka dots and more, and it also comes in shapes. Here are some Leafs these are blossom leaves and you could make flowers, and you treat them very much like stickers. Washi tape is commonly sold in rolls, but lately it has also been available in strips, much like stickers. However, since Washington's global success, many decorative tapes have come to market while she tape is made from rice paper. But decorative tapes can be made from other substances, such as silk, plastic, fabric, tissue or other types of paper. Well, these offer even more variety and patterns, colors and textures for artists. They do not have the same properties of washi tape. Some can't be written on or tourney or repositioned. Some are opaque, while others are thick and heavy. This is not bad. It's just different than Washington. Companies such as duct tape or Scotch tape are making beautiful decorative tapes very similar washy. They're becoming easier to find, and they have their uses. Just be aware when you are making your artwork so that you're using the correct supplies for the task. Now let's get started on a washi tape Swatch book. 3. My Washi Tape Swatch Book: And here is my little art supply Swatch journal. It's kind of like a little travelers notebook. And then I have my washi tape Swatch journal right in here, and each page is dedicated to a color. We're colors so that I have a complete record of all the tapes that I own that I keep. And if I run out of one, I can put a little color pencil Asterix next to it. And I know that's the one I want purchase. So I keep them off here. It takes a little bit of time to actually execute it, but it saves me so much time and money by knowing what I have at a glance. And I also put in the very back here my masking tapes so that I know what I have in that as well. I keep other journals with other art supplies, and I just keep this in my purse and I can use it all on the Internet. Or I can just use while I'm shopping 4. Materials Needed for a Swatch Book: to make my Swatch Journal book. I'm gonna need a few supplies, some wax paper, a pencil, an eraser, my micro in five permanent marker pen. Small ruler in my book. Um, the book was 3.5 by 5.5 inches. You can use whatever size you like. I just find this size to be very handy. And then I have my assortment of washi tapes that I want to put in the book. So I'm dedicating the page to green, so I made a pile of all my green washi tape. 5. Prepping the Journal Page: So the first stage in making the swatch is to find the page in my book right here in between the blue and yellow and teal and I'm going to hold it open letter, some clips here, Then I'll take a piece of wax paper. I also want a piece of scrap paper here and with my ruler. I'm gonna mark out, Put a marker. Straight line. Doesn't have to be. I don't have to measure it from side to side. I'm just going for the length here. So I measure it two inches and I'm gonna put a 1.5 inch mark just like that. Now we'll get started. 6. Lining the Journal Page: So now I want to take my book and I want to mark where I want to put my parallel lines so that I can see the transparency of my tape. So I have my ruler set down here flush with the one side in the 5.5 on this side and at the one to 34 and five. I just make some light pencil marks and I'll do the same on this side. This page for five. Then with my micron pen, I'm gonna connect those lines. I'll go very slowly from one page to the next, and then it for the second line. Just gotta eyeball it, go down just a little bit of a way to the same thing over here, could remove that clip first. - And here we have the lines on our page 7. Creating the Paper Edge: So now I want to make my seem down here with the green tape for reference to make it easier when I want to look up something so I'll fold all my pages in half and clipped, Um, so that I have just that one spot. Take me wax paper and set it down. Sit down my journal. And then I'm just gonna place with eyeball the tape, try and make it so that half of the tape is on one side and half on the other, and I'll press it down. I'll really burnish it. Making sure comes in contact with the paper there. No air bubbles. Quit my tape. I'll just slide that off the wax paper. You will come to the other side and fold it over itself, and then I'll burnish. That's amore. Clip the ends just around them like the rest of the pages around. And now we can start our swatches 8. Creating Swatches: So here's that scrap paper. We have the inch and 1/2 line and I'm gonna line up my wax paper just over that. And so now I will just grab some of my tape and Polo Swatch. Whoops. Poor little swatch off. Sometimes the tape sticks, and I want to make sure I get the entire piece go and I'll tear it and then I'll put it down on the paper and I want to make sure that I have the entire area that I want to make a swatch covered. I'm not worried about this piece for now, so I'll set my used tape aside and I'll do this with the remaining. Okay, so now I just cut this right down the side and I'll continue with the remaining pieces of washing takes, but I want to categorize. So there I have all my swatches of tape, and now I'm just gonna eyeball it, create my cut this out. I will cut approximately 1.5 inches for each of them. Go up to my mark here. Let's go right over here. And I'll do the same with this piece. You know, I ball that now we'll add it to our journal 9. Adding Swatches to the Journal: So now we have our journal opened up. I clipped the pages so they stay flat and we have all our swatches here from the tape and the reason One of the reasons I put it on the wax paper aside from the wax paper making it easy to remove is I can look at a glance and see where I want to put things. Or if the color is so way off that I want to put it on a different page. Typically, I don't do that putting it on a different page because, for example, this one looks very white to me. But when it's purchased in the role, I will be looking for a green role. So I want to keep it kind of how I plan on using it or I see it before I use it. Keep my expectations the same. So I'm just gonna put my first piece down. Then I burnish it really well. And then I tend to keep larger pieces of tape together the same side of the journal. If I have a little spot here, I might put in a smaller piece. This one looks like a good one for that. But for the most part, I try and keep similar sizes together. I just like the way that looks. But you could do it. However you'd like. This is really helpful to me because I didn't realize I had so many greens. Okay, there I have my completed swatch page. 10. Storing Large Amounts of Washi Tape: for my washi tape. When I have this amount, I'll just store it in a short box. So it's a short box and it has a cover by Keep it all together. I put the tape on its side, so at a glance, I can see all the different colors that I have, and I store it by size of the roles. In this way. They just stay together a little better, and I can just put the lid on and keep it in my cupboard. 11. Storing Specialty Washi Tape: for my Washington That's in shape specifically my flower petals. I keep them all just in a little Ziploc bag here. The bag is clear so I can see what's inside of it, and it keeps all my pedals together. So if I'm gonna do a themed layout or if I'm gonna if I want to make a flower, I could just grab the bag, empty it and then use it just like that. 12. Storing X-Large Amount of Washi Tape: Now, if you have a giant assortment or an extra large assortment of washing tape that you want to store, what I do is I keep it in this giant 12 by 12. It's like a scrap of paper case. It's clear, and I can see inside of it, and I can see all the tape that I have at a glance. I put it on its side, and then I leave a spot for my additional washing. So these air the pedals from the washi tape individual stickers. So I keep those and they're just like this and I'll keep my sheets in here is well, and so it keeps all my washi tape together. One of the thing I wanted to say is I keep an envelope. I keep the pieces of washi tape that I attached to the wax paper that I can still use these . And so if I have them left over, I'll just put them on the wax paper, cut them out pretty much individually, and then I'll just keep them in my envelope here and this way I have the middle glance and they're ready to go, and I'll store this right inside as well 13. Storing Other Tapes: when I store my decorative tapes that I know are not washi tape because they really don't have any of the properties of the washi tape. They're made of plastic or they're like the duct tape, so they're extremely tacky in very high sticking. Very high adhesion it. I don't want to use these necessarily in my books there. They'll start to deteriorate my artwork so I don't want to use those in our journals, but I might use them for other tasks. They might make great binding for covers or in various other uses. This is masking tape from Scotch, and it looks very much like washing tape. It responds very similarly. It's not as reposition, double as washy, but I still use it frequently, and I really like it. So I just store this in a short bucket. This way I can see what I have it a glance, and it's easy for me to find. I keep it all together, the small ones and the large ones and these I just sort by the fact that they're decorative tape that isn't reposition herbal and is made of like a plastic substance, usually 14. Class Wrap Up: So today we worked on making this watch book. Here we have our swatches that we made today. They're right here at a glance where I can see all the greens that I have and I can see their transparency. I did this with other colors as well as I showed in the earlier class. Now there are other methods you can use for making your swatches. I've included a downloadable handout and it shows you seven different ways. You can also create swatches for washes. These are a little more artistic in their Mork time consuming, but they're certainly fun to dio. You could make a page of nothing but little hangers with washi tape hanging on or Polaroid Polaroid pictures here. I just have little strips here. I took a tag and traced it and then just put the strips on the tag. Or you could do that with an actual tag as well. Here I'm a just little hanging, um, hanging strips here. I made like a little bookshelf with bookends of a whale here. I just took the tape. This was a long tape, and I just cut it down and drew it little outline and here made little pictures hanging from it. You can download this in the project section, or you can check out the Pinterest board that I've included A link to. It has lots more ideas for washy swatches as well as different washi tape ideas. Thanks for joining me. If you enjoyed this class, please consider leaving your review. And please think about taking a photo of your swatch work and put roasting in the project section of this class. Thanks for watching. 15. Bonus Class: DIY Washi Tape: Here's a class on how to make d I y decorative tape. The first thing I did was I took some gel printed pages that I had made, and I cut them into 1/2 inch strips, which is the same size is my tape, Um, Then I cut off any parts that weren't tape worthy, shall we say? And then I took the strips of the half inch removable, double sided tape, and I put it onto a piece of wax paper. From there, I transferred it to the strips that I had cut out of my decorative paper, and I did this with all of the strips. I was really careful to burnish them as well and get rid of any air. Bubbles trim the tape again, and then I just started to roll them down to size so I could store them. It's not truly washi tape because it doesn't have the same properties in terms of, even though I'm using removable tape, it doesn't stick and re stick just like washy does, and nor does it tear like washy. But if I want to make a specialty or custom tape, this will work in the Pinterest page where I've included links to I've included a different ideas for making your own law. She taped through other various tutorials, so take a peek at that.