Two Fun Uses of Washi Tape on Your Pages + How to Make a Flower Embellishment with a Circle Punch by Mendi Yoshikawa

My Creative Scrapbook Guest Designer Mendi Yoshikawa is featuring our February Creative Kit today with a trio of tutorials to help you re-create the special details that you see on her beautiful layout!

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Hello there!  I am so excited to be joining My Creative Scrapbook as a guest designer!  I thought today I would share with you several mini tutorials on how I created some of the special elements for my layout using this month's Creative Kit.

One of the first things I knew I wanted to do when I saw the wide polka-dot washi tape in the kit was punch it with a decorative edge.  This is super each to achieve by temporarily adhering it to vellum, parchment paper or even lightweight cardstock if you don't push it down to tightly.  I started by adding the tape to the edge of my piece of 12" long cardstock, clipping it off with my scissors on each end.

I wanted my punch to be centered as much as possible on each edge so I used my Tim Holtz ruler to find the center of my paper and line it up with the center of the scalloped design.

I then punched the center and continued my way down both sides, lining up the scalloped design with the guides on my punch as I worked.

The last step is as easy as gently lifting the tape up from the paper below to reveal the beautiful scalloped edge.  It's so easy and yet it gives the tape such a fun look!

Up next is a little tutorial on how I created this flower embellishment with only the use of a simple circle punch.

I started by punching 4-1/2 circles from a 12" x 2-3/4" strip of patterned paper.

Next, I used my ruler to find the center of each circle.

I lightly used this mark to draw a light pencil line down the center of each circle.  This line became my guide for punching my flower petals.

I then punch up to the pencil line on both sides of the circle resulting in two petals from each circle.

This gave 9 flower petals from the 4-1/2 circles.

I chose to add a bit of chalk ink to the edges of each petal before stitching around them with my sewing machine.  I like the texture this gives them and how it makes them stand out against each other when layered.

The last little detail I added to my layout was filling in the heart of the silver glitter sticker in my title.  To do this I added two strips of the washi tape side by side on a piece of scratch paper.  I then temporarily adhered the heart sticker over the top to trace it onto my tape with a pen.

I then removed the glitter sticker to fussy cut the heart just inside my pen line using a pair of scissors.  When I was done I was able to slip the washi tape heart under my title to give it an extra splash of color and tie in my scalloped borders.

I finished my layout off with 3 Prima Flowers that came with Creative Kit which I paired with hand-cut and stitched leaves.  I love how I was able to create not only some bright and playful layouts with this fun kit, but one that is soft and pretty!

I hope I've inspired you to try one of these fun techniques!  :)

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Please visit our Design Team Gallery to view more of Mendi’s beautiful work.

Here's the February Creative Kit:

For full descriptions of our kits, subscription information, and more, visit our website at MyCreativeScrapbook.com