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I love the look of the printed twill tapes that you can get now, but I hate the high prices! So I decided to experiment on my own. I picked up a package of polyester twill tape at Walmart--they had no cotton, which was the look I really wanted. I typed up a single line of the word I wanted and printed it out on a piece of paper. Then I layed a line of double stick tape over the print and stuck a strip of my twill tape to it and ran it back through my printer. Looked great!
Has anyone else had any experience with this? What have you found works and doesn't? Do you prefer the cotton twill tape like I do? I found a site that I think I'm going to order from: http://home.att.net/~jsteinheimer/mainpage.htm
Prices looked great for the amount you get. Let me know if you know of anyplace better!
Sounds very interesting, so the ribbon didn't have any trouble going through the printer? How much does it "stick" up from the paper?? I would love to try this. I agree with you, it looks pretty, but expensive. would love to see a sample of one that you have done already. Thanks for sharing. :lol:
Before getting so heavily into SU, I bought some unmounted stamps (awesome alphabet stamps!) from Michele at Purple Onion Designs.
Go here, then go to the bottom of the page. She has 100% cotton twill and she stamps on it. That twilltape.com has lots of twill for decent prices - do you know if it's 100% cotton? I think that accepts the ink much better. You can stamp on the twill and it's a really cool effect. The Everyday Flexible Phrases would be great on the twill!
After you look at the twill, be sure to look at the home page to see the other cool stuff and awesome stamps. She also has a gallery with lots of great ideas.
One of my local craft stores sells twill tape for 19¢/yard, marketed as rug binding in the latch-hook rug department. It's 100% cotton, unlike the polyester kind that I previously picked up at JoAnn, so it is much easier to stamp on IMO. The downside is it's only available in white, but I brought mine home and dyed it in a pot of Lipton tea to make it beige. After it dried, I used Classic Close to Cocoa and Everyday Flexible Phrases to stamp out the message that I needed. Very cheap and easy!
Thanks for the link and your input, ladies. That link that I posted at the beginning had 72 yards of the white twill tape for about 6 bucks. Can't beat that with a stick! I would just tea stain some if I wanted it to be ecru as opposed to white. I'm sure that the cotton would accept the ink better (and darker!) than the polyester did. The ink came out looking more grey when I ran it through my printer, than black.
I had no problem running it through my printer, for those interested. Like I said, I printed my line of text on my paper in landscape (so that I had a longer piece to work with), then adhered a line of double sided tape over the line of text and stuck my twill tape to it. (This works on gross grain ribbon and sheers too, by the way.) Then I ran it back through my printer and voila---printed twill tape! I don't have a fancy printer, either. Just a Lexmark all in one.
I like the 1/2". You can get it in 1/4", but it's like a shoelace. Would work well for the SMALL typed stamps. I found if I went larger than 1/2", it looked too wide and wouldn't work well for cards and tags, IMO. I wonder how it would work if we brayered it with ink--like if we wanted to stain it black. Any thoughts?
I like the 1/2". You can get it in 1/4", but it's like a shoelace. Would work well for the SMALL typed stamps. I found if I went larger than 1/2", it looked too wide and wouldn't work well for cards and tags, IMO. I wonder how it would work if we brayered it with ink--like if we wanted to stain it black. Any thoughts?
Renee
Thanks, Reneé--I think if we wanted to try to dye it black, we'd probably have luck with tapping Black Craft Ink against it with sponge dauber and then heat setting? I think we'd have a tough time working in the Classic ink, given the thickness of the material twill tape is made from? At least, Craft would be the first thing I'd try if I wanted to color it myself . . .
__________________ Julie Ebersole (JulieHRR once upon a time . . . )julieebersole.com"So shines a good deed in a weary world." -Willy Wonka
I would really like to see if other things have been tried on it and I am really not following the printing on the printer thing too well.
:oops:
Shirley
Shirley---
I haven't tried embossing on it yet. I'd be worried about it flaking or chipping off.
Here's how to run it through the printer:
1--start by typing a line of text that you want printed on your ribbon. Print it on paper in landscape format so that you can print a longer piece.
2--After printing your paper, lay a line of double stick tape over the text line. Cut a piece of twill tape the same length as your tape and text, then stick it on top of the tape. This way, when you run it back through your printer, you'll be printing directly on the twill tape.
3--Run your paper with the twill tape adhered to it through your printer, then remove your twill tape and use it. This will work with gross grain ribbon and sheer ribbons as well.
Hope this helps!
Of course, you can always stamp on the twill tape, too!
Thanks, Reneé--I think if we wanted to try to dye it black, we'd probably have luck with tapping Black Craft Ink against it with sponge dauber and then heat setting? I think we'd have a tough time working in the Classic ink, given the thickness of the material twill tape is made from? At least, Craft would be the first thing I'd try if I wanted to color it myself . . .[/quote]
I think that you're right about the craft ink for dying it, as opposed to the classic. Wouldn't metalic inks look pretty on black or navy? Fun stuff! I'm going to have to order some.
For me, stamping on the tape is the easiest and fastest option--I love the printer idea, but would only resort to it if I didn't have a stamp that said what I wanted to say, generally speaking. I am lazy.
Also, for stamping on twill tape, I would suggest the Craft ink for bold color--dye ink would yield a softer more faded look, I think?
I have stamped on rayon ribbon with Craft ink with marvelous results.
__________________ Julie Ebersole (JulieHRR once upon a time . . . )julieebersole.com"So shines a good deed in a weary world." -Willy Wonka
I agree with Susan...I get my twill at Purple Onion..Michele has wonderful customer service, awesome prices, and wonderful stamps..I have known Michele for over a year now, and she is a very talented, and creative mind. Check out her site--she has black twill, also--cute to stamp white on..Kerilou
The price is for 72 yards, Renee. Thats a lot of tape.
Also, thank you for explaining it to me. I really like that. I think I would try it just cuz. Ha! Ha! Silly me. Entertained so easily. It sounds so interesting. I am going to try to find it at Ben Franklins or a Fabric Shop maybe.
Thank you for the idea. I was in AC Moores today and they had "Bobbin Tape" and so little on it and it cost $1 for 3 feet. Tsk Tsk. I don't think so. It was cute, but not that cute. I like your idea.
That is a lot of tape! It's a great price and I figure that I can always trade it or use it to tie up my kids......whatever the occasion may be. Know what I mean?
Something to consider if you do buy the 72 yd. rolls . . .
Often times, I will bulk purchase something because it is such a better price. If I use it in a class or something, and folks like it, they wish they could get some, but of course, where we live (beautiful, scenic, craft wasteland island . . . !), such items are hard to come by. And, they don't have a reason to purchase 500, of course, no matter how good the price!
So, I usually sell it to them for only a little mark-up over what it cost me.
For example, I purchased 500 white cardboard slide mounts for just under $27 including S & H. I used them in a class and they went nuts, and wanted to know where they could get some.
On this island????? No way! I sold them packs of 10 for $1, which is still incredibly cheaper than any online source they could buy them from OR the local scrapbook store, which didn't carry 'em anyway . . .
So, I got rid of the excess, and helped them out at the same time, all at reasonable costs for all concerned.
HTH,
__________________ Julie Ebersole (JulieHRR once upon a time . . . )julieebersole.com"So shines a good deed in a weary world." -Willy Wonka
That's a really good idea. Thanks for your input, Julie. Even after stamping to my heart's content and tying up the five kids, I'll still have plenty left to go around. I think that might work really well at my monthly demonstrator's club meeting too.
What about making 48 custom colors by using the re-inkers? I am taking a guess that we could use the re-inkers (or maybe with a little water if color is too intense) to dye it. Of course like any dye, cotton would take the color better than poly or poly blend. Just a thought.
One of the things that was mentioned earlier when we were talking about "dying" the twill tape, is that tapping it with a craft pad and heat setting it would probably do it very well. I'm sure that you could use the reinkers to actually dye it, but I'd be loathe to take on that messy job!
Twill tape fan!!
