Washi Tape Effect Tutorial

I had lots of left over trimmed paper that is too nice and expensive to throw away. I love washi tape, but that is too expensive for me to buy regularly. My solution is to improvise with masking tape! Just cover the paper you love with masking tape, design side up. Trim to the size you want, pop some double sided tape on the back and there you have your very own free washi tape. And you can write on it which is the best part.
I developed the idea by wrapping the tape round the cup of a tea light, and that would make a really cute stocking filler or tombola stall item, but use any where you would use washi; labels, projects and cards

Crafting Newbie 101

{Get a workspace}

When you start on this mad bad world of crafting, you will suddenly start to acquire lots and lots of 'stuff'.

Even if you're keeping it minimal and re-using everything, you will start to get weird about throwing things away.  I don't see cut offs of anything as scrap any more. Green as this may be, there is only so much space in my small house, and I really don't have any disposable income at the moment so I had to come up with solutions pretty quickly. 

This coincided with my college schedule, the first home project being to make a work space. 

I really am short on space and storage and I know that if it isn't at arms length to me, I won't use it, so I emptied out my makeup drawers, wedged them in a corner of my kitchen and set up a little crafting area. 

But thats just the beginning. 

Toothpicks, glue sticks, buttons, stamps, stickers, paper trimmings or needles can't live in the packaging they come in forever, but need to be kept separated and easy to access. 

This is my solution. 

For this tutorial I used cheap Tesco copier paper but the ones I have in my drawers are made from heavy card stock. You could even experiment with acetate or card, as long as you like it, try it. 

What are your storage solutions other than buying them?

Then once I had made them up I had to elaborate on the idea. I used old photos and some gorgeous paper
to line them. I eyeballed it all but use a pen to get things exact if you're giving them away or making card embellishments. I'm really intrigued by shadow boxes at the moment and these are a great way to play with that idea.