tutorial

Do you love to add washi tape to your layouts and hybrid projects? If you’re like me you’ve probably ached about your selection and wished you could make this tape just a shade lighter or recolor that pattern to match your project better? Plus buying a roll of it if you only need a little piece for your project … my budget doesn’t like that, lol.

Forget about those worries – the Cameo Silhouette is perfect to create exactly the tape you need.

I created a small washi tape freebie for you to follow along (if you want more you’re welcome to look at the full pack now on sale in my store ;D ),you can download the freebie here.

Open the included .dxf file with Silhouette Studio

If you have the perfect paper in your stash, simply move the tape shape to where you want it cut and let the Cameo cut it for you. Then apply glue to the backside – I love to use a glue that will dry “sticky” so I can use the paper tape almost like the “real thing”.

If you want to create your own custom tape you have to get the color or design on the tape first. One possibility is to print your pattern to paper or to sticker paper and cut then. An awesome effect can be achieved by printing on printable clear sticker paper – while it’s not strictly looking “washi”, it is very pretty!

Or you could have fun with the Silhouette sketch pens in your cameo – this I will show you in a little more detail with a very simple design:

Again we start with the plain washi tape – I moved it into the upper left corner because that is where I usually want the Cameo to cut.

Now choose your type tool and change the options in the text style window according to mine (font is wingdings3 and text size is 72pt), click somewhere in your workspace and type: gggg

If you try to move your arrows by clicking on the little circle you will see that the letters (or in that case arrows) will try to align with the path of your tape. That’s a great feature to keep in mind for other projects but not at all what we want now, lol

So change back to your move tool to move the arrows or use the align window.

Next open the cut style window, select your tape and click on “no cut” – the tape lines will gray out and the arrows will stay red. This step is saving you the trouble of moving things off the cutting board and re-aligning them later. Not that important in our little project today, but a major time (and material saver) in more complicated projects.

Open the cut window, select the sketch pen (and don’t worry about the other settings). Exchange the blade for a sketch pen of your choice. Load your medium into the Cameo and press “cut” and wait until the sketching is done. DO NOT UNLOAD AT THIS POINT! (Sorry for shouting, but this is important to make sure your project will be perfectly aligned, lol)

Now go back to the cut settings, assign the arrows as “no cut” and the tape as “cut edge”:

Back to the cut window and this time pick the blade and the printable sticker paper (or whatever other paper you’re using). Take the sketch pen out of the Cameo and re-enter the blade (without removing the cutting mat). Press cut.

Voilà, your custom washi tape is ready for using.

I case you wonder why I didn’t use the print-and-cut for this, here are some more thoughts about the use of the sketch pens. I like that they give a different texture than a printer. I love the added color options the sketch pens give me, think white, gold, silver – these are colors your printer cannot print. I love having outlines done with the sketch pen and being able to color them in with markers without the problem of running ink. I prefer using a sketch pen (if it’s possible) for a smaller project, because I don’t end up having the print-and-cut-markings on my paper.

I just put some basic cutting file sets into my store, they are 33 % off until June 9th – including the full washi tape set:

I would love to hear what other themes you would like to see a tutorial for: rhinestones, fabric projects, fusible appliqué, … Let me know either here in the comment section or via pm in the forum

Thank you and have a wonderful day!