Faux Washi Tape Handstamped Cards

I am so excited to be a paper crafting contributor with my creative friend and sister in Christ Diana over at The Girl Creative!  A little bit about me first.  I am a real mom, a real wife, a real sister, a real daughter and a real friend.  I struggle every day with keeping things in perspective not going off the deep end when it comes to social media time (can we say pinterest and facebook addict?), spending quality time with my family, loving people well, and keeping God first.  I love to cook (and eat), garden, arrange flowers, take pictures, scrapbook, make cards and do pretty much anything fun and creative with paper, yarn, wood, glue, etc.  I am married to a youth pastor and that provides many blessings and challenges.  You’ll find me blogging about paper crafts over at Broken Treasures where I celebrate stories.

So for my first post I wanted to show you a super cool technique using background stamps.  I should first explain that I am a bit obsessed with washi tape (LOVE IT!).  So when I learned of this fun technique using stamps to create a washi tape look I was hooked for two reasons (1) I love Washi and (2) I already have stamps!

So to create this look you will need the following:

• Background stamps – I used these  (These background stamps would work well too)
• Ink – any color will do
• Pattern Paper – You can use any pattern paper you have on hand – I used the Dream Pop paper pack
• Cardstock (one piece white cut at 3 1/2 x 4, one piece grey cut at 4×5 and a card base measuring 4 1/4 x 5 1/2)
• Circle punch or die cutter
• adhesive

Step 1:  The easiest way to create this look is by placing your stamp on your white card stock piece (3 1/2 x 4) and stamp at a diagonal off the paper.

** When you purchase clear stamps from Close To My Heart they will come with a foam insert.  Do not throw this away.  The foam insert is perfect for putting under your paper when you stamp to give you a crisp stamped image instead of the smudge look that sometimes happens with stamps.  Felt will also work well.**

Step 2:  To create a smaller piece of “washi” or one that runs through the middle of your card stock you will need a piece of scrap paper (I often use a post it note) to mask off the area you DO NOT want stamped and then stamp over your card stock and your mask.

Step 3:  Punch out your pattern paper circles using a 1 1/4 inch circle punch or a die cut (for making multiples of the same shape I love using my cricut).  I used my Cricut to cut out out the butterfly and hearts.  I also stamped on some of my circles.  Then you will assemble the circles on your 3 1/2 x 4 piece of card stock how you want them.  Because I’m so indecisive and a perfectionist this step takes me much longer than it should take any person to do anything!

Step 4:  You’ll notice that I moved them around until I came up with my final placement. Then you need to glue them down and glue on your embellishments (butterfly, heart, etc.).  I used the stamp set from the For Always workshop on the go to create the banner and the heart.

Step 5:  Glue your 3 1/2 x 4 down onto your 4 x 5 piece of card stock.  I then used stamps to create the birthday, thinking of you and thank you sentiment at the bottom on the grey card stock.

Final step:  Glue to your card base.

I created a set of six of these and think they would make great gifts for moms, teachers and friends.  If you create a project using this technique (or other faux washi tape techniques) stop on over and share it on my facebook page 🙂

Happy Crafting!