Tape Lifting Techniques

This technique is so simple! So easy that I could kick myself for not ’seeing’ it sooner! Its been staring at me in the face all along; still, better late than never huh!

This technique involves using clear packaging tape or heavy duty masking tape to actually LIFT off the image and use it to make an impression or background.

There was several ways you can apply the tape lifting technique. This tutorial will give you a run down through all of them.

Read on for details.

Getting Started – Tools Needed For Tape Lifting

The first thing you need is Wide Clear Packaging Tape; you can use any size tape but I prefer to go for the widest as you can lift bigger images and your not as limited.

Heavy Duty Masking Tape; you want the strong stuff not the low tack variety. I got some super duper sticky stuff from poundlands.

Next you need Printed Papers to tape lift from; Newspapers are perfect for this because they are so thin. You can use book pages too from cheap paperbacks, I use the pages from books I get free on magazines for this purpose. Magazines are also ideal.

You will also need Rubber Stamps of your choice and a good Black Permanent Dye Inkpad (for example memories).

Lastly you need ordinary White Card to transfer your tape lifts onto; you can use any colour you wish, I just prefer to use white so I can add my own colour afterwards.

Which Tape Is Best For Tape Lifting?

You can work with either masking tape or clear packaging tape for all these techniques below, they are both ideal and both create very different effects. It depends on the overall look you are aiming for. Clear tape creates a more striking effect where the masking tape creates a very subtle muted effect. Try them both and compare.

Creating Tape Lifting Backgrounds:

For the tape lift backgrounds you need either the masking tape or the clear tape, the directions are the same no matter what type of tape you opt for.

1. Tear off a small strip of tape, gently rub it across newspaper or paperback paper print, do not rub too hard, quickly lift off the tape, then press the tape lift image directly over the top of the white card stock (leaving the actual tape and image on the card itself)

The trick is to remove the tape without removing too much of the paper with it. If you practise this step you will get used to pressing and lifting the text and not the paper. Cheap quality papers work best for this I found like freebie magazine supplements, newspapers and free paperbacks.

2. Continue tape lifting text from various papers until you have completely covered the surface area of your card. When sticking the tape on the card; arrange the tape lifts so that they are showing at all different angles and directions.

Dont worry about completely covering the background with print, it is ok to have blank areas! You can add blank tape inbetween the prints so that there is no break in the texture of the background itself.
When you’ve finished you will have something which looks a little like these samples:

Clear Tape Lifting Background:

Masking Tape Lifting Background:

The newsprint is still visible through the masking tape despite the masking tape being opaque….how cool is that 😉

As you can see from the above two scans that they are very different from one another! Talk about cool!

Adding Colour To The Backgrounds:

Because the clear tape lift backgrounds are glossy they are PERFECT for alcohol inks! Before adding colour I apply a layer of clear tape over the top of the tape lift prints so that the entire surface area of the card is completely covered with clear glossy tape. Then I add colour to the background using alcohol inks. The background below was created using Pinata inks:

To add colour to the Masking Tape Backgrounds I sponged on Dye Inks:

As you can see from the samples above that the 2 different tapes create 2 very different and yet striking effects!

Once youve made your backgrounds you can use them in your projects.

Tape Lift Stamping Technique

This technique involves using the tape to actually lift the image from your rubber stamp!

1. Ink your rubber stamp with black dye ink and place it face up on your work surface. I used Memories brand, the stamp used is part of the Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous line.

2. Tear off a strip of tape; either clear or masking, and place it sticky side down over the top of the inked rubber stamp.

3. Very gently, rub your finger across the surface of the tape to transfer the ink, the sticky surface of the tape ‘grabs’ at the ink and doesnt slide or slip.

4. Quickly lift off the tape and press the image (and the tape) down onto card stock. Your tape lift stamped image is now transfered and ready for colour!

Note: Your tape lift stamped images will be a REVERSE image so dont use stamped images which rely too much on words (ie greetings) – if your using a word background stamp however the back to front lettering will give it a collagey feeling!

As before you can use alcohol inks with the clear tape or you can sponge on dye inks over the masking tape images.

Card Samples Using Tape Lift Stamping Technique:

Using Clear Tape:

Using Masking Tape:

This technique is really exciting and I love lifting the images of the stamps! The quality of the prints on the clear tape are awesome, far better than on acetate as the tape doesnt slip!

But thats not all!

Tape Lift Foiling:

Below are some samples I did using Tape Lift Foiling!! This technique is just like the tape lifting methods described above; only you use foil on the tape to ‘lift’ it off its protective backing sheet! Try it yourself and see…

Tape Lift Foiling Samples:

I hope you all enjoy playing with this technique and have as much fun with it as I did!If you have any questions or comments you can use the ‘add comments’ function below!
Trish

Additional Notes:

A few readers have asked me about the Masking Tape Lifting Technique on the comments form and how it works as they cannot understand how it could possibly work as the masking tape isnt clear.

Heres my response:
I know masking tape isnt clear and it is opaque or rather cream in colour, but believe me the tape lift technique DOES work with it! Seems to me people have not actually TRIED it to see, just commented that they ‘dont think it will work’ …..
Just place the tape onto either newspaper or onto an inked stamp, lift it off again then stick the masking tape onto a sheet of card. The image WILL be visible – not as strongly as it would be with clear tape but it IS there – just very subtle and slight. It looks especially good on vintage style images as it makes them look distressed.

TRY IT AND SEE FOR YOURSELF!

Shattered Glass/Mosaic Collage Technique

I’m assuming the reason why this technique has been called ‘Shattered Glass’ is because when it is completed the collaged sections resemble shards of broken glass.

I decided to call my cards ‘mosaic collage cards’ because before I stamped on them they reminded me very much of abstract mosaic craft.

First of all I’m going to give you basic instructions on how to create the mosaic shapes, read on for more information:

How To Create The Mosaic Shapes

What You Will Need:

A5 and A6 Card Stock: you can use any colour you wish: I used black and white card

Masking Tape: this is the tape you use for decorating and painting with

Colour Medium of your choice: read below for how I created the coloured mosaics.

How To Create:

There are 2 ways of creating the mosaic shapes depending on the size of your card stock:

Framed Mosaics

The following instructions are for the smaller sheet of card (A6):

This methods creates a frame around your mosaic shaped card. The framed mosaic can be used to attach directly onto the front of a card blank once you have completed it.

1. Take your sheet of card stock and lay it in front of you.

2. Tear off several pieces of masking tape and press them down on your trousers or a piece of fabric: this is to remove the extra tackiness of the tape so that you don’t tear the card stock when you remove them later on.

3. Take one strip of masking tape and tear it in half, place a strip at the top and then at the bottom of your card stock, jagged rough side facing inwards.

4. Repeat step 3, only this time place a strip on the left and on the right hand side of the card stock.

You now have a kind of frame shape created by the tape.

5. Next tear the masking tape into long thin jagged strips, and lay them down inside the frame, place them at different angles and shapes to create abstract sections. See above scan for a better idea.

Your mosaic shapes are now ready for you to add colour and stamp upon.

How To Add Colour To Your Mosaic Card Stock

Direct To Paper:
You can use either sponge or your ink pads direct to the card stock to create a direct to papered coloured background. See my class on How To Direct To Paper elsewhere on this site.

Stippling:
Stipple the inks from your ink pads using a stippling brush to create a coloured background.

You can stipple acrylic paints onto the card to create backgrounds..theres many different types of paints available on the market..pearls and metallics would look especially good on dark colour card stock.

My favourite method is as follows and works best on black card stock:

Rainbow Jewels Pearl Ex Mosaic Backgrounds

You can see a scan of the background here:

As you can see the black card stock enhances the pearls and the metallics colours which I used to create the background.

Here is how to create it:

What You Need

Black Card Stock with masking tape already laid down to create mosaic shapes

Metallic Acrylic Paints: I used paints by Inscribe and Plaid

Stippling Brush

PVA Glue or Perfect Paper Adhesive

Pearl Ex in various colours

How To Create

First of all you can use both glossy or matt card stock for this technique. I used both and they both created very different results. The glossy card stock created a more transparent effect where the matt card created an opaque effect.

1. Using your stipple brush lightly stipple metallic colour acrylic paints over the entire surface of the card. I used metallic: green, gold, copper, pink, lilac and blue.

You don’t want to completely cover the surface, leave a tiny bit of the black card showing through.

2. Squirt a little pva glue (or perfect paper adhesive) onto a piece of scrap paper, using your stipple brush take up the glue and stipple it onto the card stock.

3. Working very quickly before the glue dries, dip your stipple brush into a pot of pearl ex colour and stipple the pearl ex over the pva glue.

At this point you can add as many or a little different colours of pearl ex as you wish. I used gold, silver, blue, bronze and green pearl ex to create a rainbow of colours.

Set aside to dry.

When dry you are left with a surface which changes colour and resembles jewels as you move it in the light.

Stamping On The Mosaics

Once your ink, paints or chosen method of colour for the mosaics has dried it is now time to stamp your collage over the surface!

You can use a large background type stamp and stamp over the masking tape and the coloured areas..this creates a kind of abstract ‘block it’ effect, or build up a collage using smaller stamps to a specific theme.

For example I used a collection of clocks and watch stamps I had to create a ‘Time’ theme.

I found it best if you stamp using an archival ink such as ancient page or memories ink. I used ‘jet black’ archival ink for a true black colour. The colour is so black it doesn’t get lost on the darker card stock.

And Finally…Removing The Tape:

Once the ink is dry its time to remove the tape!

Be careful!

Remove the tape slowly and carefully and you will have no problems!

If you rip the tape off you run the risk of spoiling your collage!

Once you have removed the tape your card is almost complete.

All that remains now is for you to crop and mount your collage onto card stock to finish your mosaic collage card.

Mosaic On Cd’s!

I did a little experimenting with this technique and found you can recreate it on Cds! Here is a cd I created using pearl ex and pva glue to add colour. Once I stamped on the cd and the ink was dry I covered the stamped areas with diamond glaze to add a texture:

Mosaic Art Collage Backgrounds

This is a gallery of backgrounds I created to show you how the mosaics look before they have been stamped.

Please note that the backgrounds have had the masking tape removed from them, you do not remove the tape until you have stamped upon the backgrounds. I removed the tape to give you an idea of what they look like.

Direct To Paper Mosaic Cards

Pearl Ex Mosaic Cards

Masking Tape Backgrounds

This one is pretty straight forward and very easy to do and it looks like old leather too!

All you need for this background is MASKING TAPE! You need the high tack variety otherwise it wont stick to your card surface very well so make sure its sticky and not that low tack stuff you can buy.

To create this background all you need to do is tear off strips from the masking tape and layer them across a sheet of card stock – it works best if you have a lot of roughly torn edges on the masking tape as it all adds to the interesting texture.

So at this stage all you need to do is tear and stick the masking tape all over the card stock till the entire surface area is covered.

Once youve done that you can add colour to your masking tape background -the best way to do that is to smoosh or sponge your colours directly from your inkpads or you can use dye re-inkers. I find dye inkpads work best for this but you can use brands like Brilliance pigment inks because you can heat set them.

Thats it! Very easy 2 step easy to create backgrounds!

Heres some examples below:

Faux Leather Masking Tape Background

Ive always used masking tape in my stamping art; its such an underated stamping tool! Normally I use it for creating masks and borders in my artwork or for the shattered glass technique or using with block it stamps…In general I would detack the tape place it on my card stock; stipple or sponge or stamp over the top of it – then remove the tape…it never occurred to me I could actually LEAVE THE TAPE ON!

Thats exactly what I did to create the card on this page:) Its a fun background technique which can be adapted to suit all tastes and styles..

Read on for more details

Supplies Used

* White Card Stock
* Black Card Stock
* Brown Card Blank
* Permanent Memories Inkpad: Art Print Brown (Stewart Superior)
* Sienna Brown And Saffron Ancient Page Permanent Inkpads (Clearsnap)
* Sponges For Direct To Papering
* Masking Tape
* Double Sided Tape
* Paper Trimmer

Rubber Stamps Used

* Come Fly With Me, Butterfly Wishes and Flutterby Image ( Time To Stamp )

Directions

1. Take your sheet of white card and your roll of masking tape. Tear off sections from the masking tape to create small rough edged pieces and position them over the surface of the white card. The smaller the pieces the better.

2. Using Saffron inkpad and sponges apply colour over the top of the masking tape – pay particular attention to the edges of the masking tape – the more ink you add to them – the darker the edges which enhances the backgrounds.

3. Using Sienna Brown and Artprint Brown inkpads; repeat stamp the flutterby image over a sheet of white card to create a ‘wings Background’. Apply colour using sponges and Sienna Brown ink. Let dry.

4. Apply colour to another strip of white card using Sienna Brown and sponge. Once dry repeat stamp the ‘Come Fly With Me’ image 3 times using Artprint Brown Memories inkpad to create a border.

5.Stamp Flutterby image on the masking tape background using Artprint Brown inkpad. Stamp the Butterfly Wishes quote underneath it.

6. Trim all the stamped sheets of card. Layer the masking tape background onto the wings background. Postion it onto a sheet of black card stock – trim off excess and layer onto the front of the card blank.

7. Position ‘Come Fly With Me’ border onto a strip of black card and trim off excess. Affix to the right of the main image on the front of the card.

Your card is complete.