Stab Stitch: Textures

You may remember the Tried and Tested Tip where I suggested keeping a sketchbook in your bag for those quiet moments where you would normally fiddle with your phone, to help keep yourself creative.

If you're looking to mix up your creativity even more, a book like this will make a huge difference. Every page is a different type of paper, a different texture, and will give you small challenges each time you go to draw.

If you make a book yourself using my stab stitch tutorial, the possibilities of textures and surfaces you could include is huge. Here's some of the things I used in this book...

masking tape paper • sandpaper • cellophane • envelopes • tracing paper

newspaper • pizza box • brown paper • sugar paper • tissue paper • wrapping paper

corrugated card • watercolour paper • calligraphy paper • cartridge paper

So why not try one yourself? They are such fun to draw in :)

Tried & Tested Tip Number 13 [Making Paper from Tape]

When my husband first saw me make this recently, he basically asked what the point was to it... Personally? I think the point is creativity.

I was recently making a sketchbook filled with textured papers (how to on that coming soon!) and this idea just hit me. Why not make paper out of masking tape? I think it worked really well, and will be fun to sketch on.

Of course, there is a whole world of tape out there nowadays, so you could use any (or multiple!) different tapes to make interesting papers, and use them in collages, scrapbooking, card making, sketchbooking, mixed media... You see where I'm going ;)

You will need:
A cutting mat with lines on it
Scissors
Scalpel
Metal Ruler
Tape!

I used a wide but plain masking tape, and made a simple 15cm square.

1. Cut a piece of tape, longer than the finished size you want, and stick it to your cutting mat sticky side up.

To hold it down, turn the ends over slightly, and it should attach...

2. Cut a second piece of tape and lay it down below it, with a small overlap (or a bigger overlap, if you wish!) so they are attached

3. Continue with this until you have reached your desired size.

4. Now things can get fiddly. Cut another piece of tape, and place this down in the opposite direction, sticky side down.

5. Continue across to your desired width, overlapping slightly as you did before, smoothing the tape out as you go. You know how I said this could get fiddly? Well, tape is sticky. And this masking tape, when stuck to itself, wasn't repositionable. And I dropped a piece. And had to start again.

6. But, you get there eventually (and if you're careful it's actually super quick and easy).

7. So now you want to cut it to your desired shape and size. As I mentioned, I wanted a 15cm square, but you could really cut it into anything you wanted! I like to use a scalpel and metal ruler to get a sharp edge.

8. And peel away your offcuts...

... to reveal a nice edge!

9. Continue to cut all the way round, and when you're done you will have your homemade paper... made out of tape!

If you try this, I'd love to see what you come up with! I'm envisioning pretty tapes, cut into flowers, hanging from ribbons... Sigh :)