Washi tape is the rare craft supply that is genuinely useful and genuinely pretty at the same time. It sticks, it comes off, you can write on it, and you can tear it with your fingers in the middle of a sentence. This guide covers what it is made of, how to choose widths, where it earns its keep, and how to get it off again cleanly.
One piece of housekeeping first: we do not stock washi tape yet. It is on our sourcing shortlist, and when it lands it will sit under Crafting with the paper and scrapbooking supplies. Until then, treat this as buying guidance rather than a product page.
What washi tape actually is
Washi is a Japanese paper, traditionally made from the long inner-bark fibers of the kozo (mulberry), mitsumata and gampi plants. Those fibers are much longer than the wood pulp in ordinary paper, which is what gives washi its particular behaviour: it is thin and semi-translucent but surprisingly hard to tear by accident, and when you do tear it deliberately the edge comes away soft and slightly feathered rather than jagged.
Washi tape is that paper with a low-tack, usually acrylic, adhesive on the back. The combination is the whole appeal. It conforms around a curved edge without creasing, it layers so you can see one print faintly through another, it takes pen and pencil, and it lifts off again without taking the page with it.
- Tears by hand — no scissors needed, and the torn end is part of the look.
- Semi-translucent — layered tapes read as layers, and a light tape over dark paper will shift colour.
- Low tack and repositionable — you get a few chances to move a piece before it settles.
- Writable — the paper face takes pigment ink, ballpoint and pencil.
Widths, weights and roll lengths
Washi is sold by width in millimetres, and 15mm is the default — the width most designs are printed at and the one to buy first if you are buying one. From there it is worth thinking in jobs rather than collecting widths for their own sake.
- Slim, 3 to 10mm — underlines, page edges, planner tabs, dividing a spread into columns. Fiddly to place, very hard to overuse.
- Standard, 15mm — the workhorse. Borders, photo corners, sealing an envelope flap, labelling a jar or a bobbin.
- Wide, 20 to 30mm — headers and blocks of colour where the tape is the design rather than the frame.
- Extra wide, 40mm and up — backgrounds, collage grounds, covering a notebook. Sold in shorter rolls because it goes fast.
Weight matters as much as width and is rarely printed on the packaging, so judge it in the hand or from photographs. Thinner, more translucent tapes layer beautifully and are the traditional feel, but they let dark ink and dark paper show straight through. Heavier, more opaque tapes cover a mistake in one pass and take wet ink better, at the cost of that soft layered look. Roll length is usually five to ten metres; extra-wide and foiled tapes are often shorter, which is worth checking before you compare prices.
How washi differs from masking and decorative tape
These three get used interchangeably in product listings and they genuinely are not the same thing. The differences matter most when you want to write on the tape, tear it by hand, or take it off a surface later.
- Masking tape — crepe paper backing with a firmer adhesive, engineered to hold a crisp paint line and then release from a wall. It is thicker, usually plain, and its tack is higher than washi. Excellent for masking, clumsy on a journal page.
- Washi tape — long-fiber Japanese paper, lower tack, thinner, printed to be seen and semi-translucent so it layers. Tears by hand, takes pen, repositions once or twice.
- Decorative or deco tape — usually a PVC or PET plastic film with a glossy finish. It will not tear by hand, most pens will not write on it without smudging, and it is fully opaque, so it never layers the way washi does. Often stickier and less forgiving to remove.
A quick test if a listing is vague: real washi tears cleanly across the roll with your thumbnail and feels like paper. If you have to reach for scissors, you are holding a plastic tape.
Uses in craft and journaling
Washi earns its drawer space because it does two unrelated jobs well: it decorates, and it holds things temporarily without damage. Most makers buy it for the first and end up relying on the second.
- Journaling — page borders, section dividers, taping in ticket stubs and clippings, colour-coding a spread.
- Collage and mixed media — layering translucent colour over paint or paper, adding a printed edge to a torn shape.
- Temporary masking — low-tack enough to mask a watercolour edge on paper that heavier tape would tear when lifted.
- Labelling — write directly on the tape to mark storage tins, jars, drawers and boxes, then peel it off when the contents change.
- Gift wrap and packaging — sealing tissue, tabbing a folded edge, decorating a plain kraft box.
- Card making — instant patterned borders without cutting and gluing patterned paper.
Planner, scrapbook and paper craft applications
In a planner, washi is mostly a navigation tool that happens to be pretty. A slim tape folded over the page edge makes a month tab you can find by touch. A wide tape across the top of a spread turns into a header you can write the week onto. Colour-coding by tape rather than by pen means the system survives you losing the pen.
- Month and section tabs — fold a slim tape over the page edge so it sticks to itself, then trim the corners.
- Photo corners — four short pieces at the corners hold a photo without adhesive touching the print, so you can swap it later.
- Habit and tracker grids — slim tape ruled into columns is faster and straighter than drawing lines.
- Scrapbook backgrounds — overlapping wide tapes across a page make a striped ground to mount photos and journaling onto.
- Repairs and hinges — a strip along a torn page or a folded card hinge, flexible enough to keep opening.
One caution for scrapbooking specifically: most washi is not sold as acid-free or archival, and the adhesive will migrate into paper over years. Use photo corners rather than taping across a photograph you care about, or work from a copy and keep the original filed flat.
Care, storage and removal
- Keep it out of direct sun — washi is paper, so daylight yellows the roll and bakes the adhesive harder over time.
- Store rolls dry and upright — humidity softens the adhesive and makes the edges of a roll stick to themselves.
- Remove slowly, at a low angle — pull back against itself rather than straight up, which is what tears the paper underneath.
- Warm it if it resists — a few seconds of hairdryer on low softens cured adhesive on a wall or a notebook cover.
- Residue lifts with an eraser — a plain vinyl eraser or a little isopropyl alcohol on a cloth handles what stays behind on sealed surfaces. Test first on anything painted.
The general rule: washi comes off easily for the first few months and gets progressively more committed after that. If a piece is meant to be temporary, plan to remove it within a season rather than a year.
Where this lives in the shop
We do not stock washi tape yet, so there is nothing to add to a basket from this page. When we do, it will sit under Crafting alongside the scrapbooking and paper craft supplies rather than with sewing notions — washi is a paper craft material and it belongs with the rest of them. These are the crafting shelves it will live beside, and they are stocked now.
Scrapbooking & paper craft →Drawing supplies →Painting & mediums →All crafting →
Want us to stock a particular brand or print? Send us a sourcing request — sourcing is the part of this job we enjoy most, and requests genuinely move things up the list.