Duct Tape Crafts

Big L's older cousin recently made him a duct tape shoulder bag.  Ever since then, he's been asking me to buy him duct tape.  Duct tape has come a long way since that grey colored tape I remember my dad using in his workshop.  These days it comes in all sorts of colors and patterns.  On a trip to the craft store, Lil P picked out a rainbow one for herself and a Star Wars one for her brother.  And since then, we've been on a duct tape crafting frenzy.

We started nice and slow with simple bracelets.  To make this we took a piece of duct tape long enough to fit around a wrist and folded it in thirds lengthwise.  Then we used some adhesive velcro so it was easy to take the bracelet on and off.  The velcro is not really necessary because duct tape is stretchy. 

Then Lil P wanted roses, which seemed daunting at first but turned out to be pretty simple-just repetitive.  I used instructions found here.  Basically take a 2" piece of duct tape.  Fold down the left top corner (leaving some of the sticky tape exposed) and then fold down the right top to make what looks like a house.  Wrap that around a stick or pencil and continue alternating where the points end up.  Continue until you get the size rose you want (about 20-25 petals).

Then Big L wanted something more masculine and after perusing images online, he decided on a wallet.  I used the instructions found here.  This wallet took a little more time than the rose but he totally loved it and it even has several small pockets for cards and a big pocket for all his cash. 

The finale to our duct tape frenzy were these braided bracelets with instructions found here.  It's really simple to make using a regular braid technique.  He doesn't have the hand strength to make it really tight yet but he got his first lesson in braiding.  

Tip:  While doing these duct tape crafts I found that the easiest way to handle the sticky duct tape was to tape it directly onto a cutting mat and use an exacto knife to cut all the pieces to the appropriate lengths and then peel off each one as needed. This worked especially well for the rose which required about 20 pieces of tape.  Alternatively, you can just rip off pieces of duct tape which works too. 

Happy duct tape crafting!