A crafter is born

My niece Sydney, the one I do alot of crafting with, had her mom go out and buy her a bunch of duct tape. She has been busy all week perfecting her duct tape crafting techniques.

Her latest creation is this beautiful wallet, with plenty of compartments for credit cards, bills, etc.

I got word of her latest creation last night while I was out having dinner with friends. I received a text from my younger sister that went something like this . . .

"Your daughter has just made a beautiful duct tape wallet . . . I will post soon."

So when she crafts, she's my daughter. Cool. 
Sydney takes the pics herself also.

Duck Tape Nirvana continued

As I think I've mentioned, I get distracted easily. I thought the next post would be about the decoupaged jewelry armoire. Fear not. The jewelry armoire is well underway. It has two coats of golden yellow paint on it and is going to get decoupaged today.

But just because I have one project started, doesn't mean I can't start and finish another one before the first one is completed. Remember, I'm the crazy thrifty crafter, not the highly organized, completion-obsessed crafter.

My neice Sydney owns an iPad I. We decided that the leftover Duck Tape Brand duct tape from the purse project, would make an awesome iPad cover. So, we consulted the internet for design ideas. The only one that we used is one we found on youtube by coregeek. We only partially used this idea. We used the 3-panels-so-we-can-make-it-into-a-stand idea from his design. But coregeek uses magnets to keep it together and we prefer velcro. It looks like he might have used corrugated plastic and we prefer recycled cardboard. Plus, I don't like measuring and planning so we winged this one on a number of features.

So once again, Sydney and I bring you our very own Duck Tape design, this one for an iPad I notebook cover and stand.

First, we gave thanks for cereal boxes, which can be used for a million different things.

We cut three peices of the cereal box for the body and then covered them in duct tape. The back piece is the size of the iPad, or maybe just a little bit bigger. The other two are for the front. One is a 2-inch strip of cardboard so the front cover can fold and become a stand when we turn it inside out. Here's where you can get creative with color. We used pink for the front and aqua blue for the back, and on the front just one zebra strip.

Now, don't get carried away because we have to tape together the 2 inch peice of card board that is covered in duck tape to the other peice of cardboard you want to be on the front, giving the front a natural fold that will make the stand when turned inside out.

Next we brought the back and front together with a "spine" made of one strip of duct tape fabric. We used aqua for the spine and just taped the spine fabric to the front and back pieces to form a book. The thickness of the ipad is about a half an inch so that's the distance between the front and the back, taping the spine on both the inside and outside of the "book" to make it stronger.

Now here comes the tricky part. We created a little pocket for the iPad to sit in so it would be secure in the case. We made one strip of duct tape fabric one tape-width wide. We then folded that piece longways in half, tucked the ends under to create a pocket, and taped the pocket to the edge of the back of the cover.

Now in order to close the cover and create a stand we needed one more peice of cardboard. We used the side of the cereal box and covered that with purple tape. You can see in the picture that we cut a pretty long piece. There's a reason for this. Running this connector piece all the way across the back of the book gives stability for it to bend both ways--to close the book and make a stand.

Then, before we taped this piece on, we tested to see where we would need folds going to the front of the cover and back when we create the stand. We taped this piece onto the back up to the point where the fold for the stand would be, reinforcing with a couple layers of tape.

Then, we attached a piece of velcro to the purple strip and the front (where the zebra strip is) And now when you fold the the front back under and attach the closing strip backwards it creates a stand.

My first attempt to link to Skip to My Lou's Made by you Mondays is with this post. Of course, I failed miserably because the thumbnail I tried to upload is not showing up, but there it is. I'll do better next time, I promise.

Does "duct tape wallet" really return over 2,000 hits on Etsy.com?

Guest Blogger Sydney Hooper

Syd (Sydney) is my niece. She was featured in a previous post where she and I constructed a safety pin bracelet for her friend Elizabeth. Today, I have invited Syd to guest blog because she has made a duct tape wallet that is absolutely adorable. It's perfect for carrying her money and her cell phone. She tells me she got this idea from her friend Madison, so she wants to give Madison a shout out for the idea.

Syd is in 5^th grade, plays basketball and softball, loves science, plays the trumpet, is a fisherman, a movie maker and a crafter.

Here is the unedited e-mail from Syd on how to make the duct tape wallet:

First start off with a BLANK piece of paper. Fold it up to WHAT EVER size you would like it to be. Get the duck tape you want, and now layer the duck tape onto the duck tape till it feels like JUST duck tape.

NOW, you may decorate that ONE (you should only have one right now) Get another blank piece of paper and do the same thing with that. MAKE SURE IT IS LONGER THEN THE OTHER PIECE OF PAPER! connect that to three of the four sides with the same duck tape NOW YOU HAVE A FLAP. which would be the "cover"

now, to keep it closed, you need a short string of paper as you see in the picture, (what im holding it by) TAPE THIS STRING TO THE FLAP OF THE "COVER"

NOW, make a pocket (like you see in a checkbook for your credit card at a restaurant) MY pocket is where the S is, that S is pink duck tape on the COLORED duck tape. it is about 2 by 3 inches long (the "POCKET")

last step, try to stretch the duck tape to make a little way for the string to POP in there to hopefully keep it closed

if you had trouble, it should make enough sense to fix. HAVE FUN:)

Thank you, Syd. I'm hoping you will teach me to make this next time we get together to craft.

How about it folks. That's Sydney's first blog post. Is she awesome or what?!