Scotch Tape Transfers > Janet Crosby Art

I have had some pleasant detours living Life in the Slow Lane, one of them was discovering all of the fun art classes at Creativebug.com. They offer a 2-week free trial, then it is $4.95 a month for unlimited classes.

Some classes are free all of the time. One of those free classes, Image Transfers, had me eager to try out scotch tape transfers.

I have created transfers with acrylic paint before. It can be done, but it is messy and fairly labor intensive for the less-than-stellar results that I got. But scotch tape… it sounded too good to be true. Easy to do and a super sharp, durable image? I had to try it!

This post isn’t a how-to, since the Image Transfers video (broken down into 4 different transfer techniques to try) is very good at describing the process. In a nutshell though, you use packing tape, old magazines, and water. Find an image you like, press the tape over it (you need to burnish it with a tongue depressor or the back of a spoon), and then soak the taped image in warm water.

I tried a couple of magazines. On the first one, the paper just fell away (see bowl, bottom right) for the other one, I gently rubbed away the paper. Super easy.

Here are some of my transfers, after they dried off from the water bath.

What will I do with these? Mainly just have fun decorating envelopes and personal artwork. I found that the back of the spoon scratched up the tape a bit, so I put a paper napkin in between the spoon and tape. That worked great.

One of the first pieces was the Sound of Music one at the top. I didn’t burnish it completely and you can see the white ‘static’ where the ink didn’t transfer.

I decided to use that one to play around with first.