Making Decorative Digital Washi Tape in Illustrator - How To

If I could only stick to the digital version... Nichole's Classes has an excellent YouTube video. I used a pretty swan photo that I found on the stock photo site Morgue File.

My Notes:

Make rectangles in Illustrator, the color doesn't matter.

Access the Wrinkle Tool. It's located under the Warp Tool in CS4. Depending on the size of your rectangles you may need to change the settings. Brush along the tape edge that would normally be cut during use.

You can further alter the cut edge by using the Direct Selection Tool (the white arrow). I dragged a few points and small groups of points on the Tulip piece. The tiny leaf version was left with no alteration.

The Morning Glory version was manipulated to angle the ends with the Shear Tool. The Shear Tool is found under the Scale Tool. You click and drag while holding Shift. The Shear Tool can also be found at Object > Transform > Shear.

Nichole made her own patterns, I used the ones available in Illustrator. (You can also use digital paper found online and a clipping mask) Windows > Swatch Libraries > Patterns > Nature > Foliage. I wanted the tape to be uniform so I used the black and white versions. If the pattern is too large or small you can scale it by going to Object > Transform > Scale. Check Pattern.

To make a colored background click on the tape, Command C to copy, Command F to paste in front. I used the eyedropper tool to pick colors from the swan photo. Object > Arrange > Send To Back to put the color piece behind the patterned piece. Command G to group each individual piece of tape. If you don't group the tape piece the 2 layers will be harder to move.

Change the Opacity of the tape to 80% so it becomes translucent. Place the tape on top of your photo.