Washitape Wednesday

That's right, I'm bringing Washitape Wednesday's back. Tiffany has stopped hosting the link up,  but I'm going to keep posting my washitape projects here, and you can feel free to share links to yours in the comments, or email them to me at creationsbycoal@gmail.com

I can't guarantee that this will happen on a weekly basis, but I'm going to try and do it at least once a month. I need to get my days better organized and plan ahead for the blog. Hopefully when work closes for renovations I can get myself ahead enough that I won't be so stressed about this. As it is, I can hardly do 3 days a week, I couldn't imagine if I'd tried to continue with 5 days a week.

Anyways, I was going to do a giveaway on my Instagram when I hit 600 followers. Clearly that didn't happen, I got busy, I didn't really have anything I wanted to give away that people would have wanted, but I thought that whatever I did, I could toss in some washitape envelopes. My goal was to make a dozen and have multiple winners (2 or 3). I ended up with 7 envelopes, but I plan to just keep working at it. I have so much washitape that using some of it up couldn't hurt.

I used a variety of tapes, either in the same colour, or in complimenting colours. I had a lot of fun doing it.

I added plain white address labels to the fronts of the envelopes. None of the tapes overlapped. I trimmed them so they hit each other, but nothing overlapped.

I tried to put the tapes on in a variety of angles and use a bunch of different patterns, but sometimes it's hard without making it all one colour. 

You can never have too much washitape!

-Alex

Washitape Wednesday

I couldn't think of anything to post last night, and this morning I found a stack of letters I need to envelope and get in the mail, so I did a washitape envelope. It's super quick and simple.

Here's the envelope before I put the address label onto it. I used various shades of blue/teal.

I angled the address label so I wasn't completely hiding the washitape in the middle. I think I'm going to make more like this!

In other Washitape Wednesday news, Jon picked up a couple more racks (on top of the far right rack). I still need more to get all my multi-coloured rolls onto racks, but I'm happy with how it's starting to look. I'll get it all onto racks, and everything where I like it, and then we're going to move and I'll have to reorganize all over again!

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday. Don't forget to share your projects over at Crafting a Fairytale.

-Alex

Wax Paper Gift Wrap

Today's tutorial is for wax paper gift wrap.
I first discovered it on Pinterest. The pin led me to Martha Stewart's website with a short described tutorial. It wasn't very helpful, and after one failed attempt, I discovered a different way to do it that gave the same result, but was easier to do.

Here's what you need:

• iron, set to medium heat, and an ironing board or table cover (towels work as well)
• 2 sheets of wax paper cut to desired size (I used 16" x 20")
• tissue paper in desired colours (I used pink and purple)
• paper towel larger than your pieces of wax paper
• scissors, craft knife and or craft punch (I used my Martha Stewart heart punch)

I started out by cutting one sheet of each colour of tissue paper into easier to fold pieces. I cut it into 1/3 and 2/3 pieces. Then cut the 2/3 piece in half.

I folded it so that there were 16 layers. 

I punched out a few hearts (all 16 layers).

I separated the heart, keeping 5-6 layers together. You don't need more than 4 if they remain together, but more if they become separated. 

Then I laid out my table top ironing mat onto my table (technically Jon's painting table). I put paper towel on top of it and turned my iron onto medium and let it heat up while I cut my wax paper.

I cut four sheets to start because I knew I'd probably screw up at least once so I wanted to have a back up for this post. 

 I placed one sheet of wax paper onto my paper towel covered ironing mat. I placed my hearts on the wax paper, layering extra where needed.

I layered paper towel on top of my wax paper and ran my iron over it as if I were ironing a shirt. Your wax paper layers should adhere to each other. There may be air bubbles and the edges might not always adhere completely, but I haven't exactly 'ironed' that out yet. That was a terrible joke.

When you're finished it should look something like this. It looks different when held up. From here you can wrap cookies or a loaf and give them as a gift, or you could turn them into envelopes.

I decided that instead of ruining my second sheet, pictured above, I used my terrible first attempt. The hearts would be brighter and more noticeable. I used my tape gun to hold it together, but I think I'll try tucking folded paper towel into the envelope and ironing the edges together to secure them. You could also use colourful staples or you could sew them together by hand.

Hope you all have fun with this one! I'd love to see your projects! Feel free to e-mail them to me and I'll put together a post of your submissions in the future.

Have a great day!

-Alex