A Ducky Hair Accessory

Finally, I have returned from my adventures abroad and have completed my duck tape challenge!

I fell in love with this pink polka dot duck tape. When Mom offered her red duck tape to the mix, I knew I wanted to make flowers.

After a little bit of slicing, manipulating, and sticking together, we made these lovely little flower bobby pins!

They look oh-so-glamorous on my noggin, don't you think?

Now... on to our next challenge!

Ducky Hearts Artist Trading Cards

It took me quite some time to decide what kind of 'duck' tape craft to make. I spent more time on Pinterest than I care to admit to, trying to come up with a unique idea for my heart tape. 

Finally, I found a bookmark that inspired me:

I have tons of bookmarks, so didn't really want to make that (cute as they are). But I liked the idea of a top layer with a heart cut out and a pretty fabric (or paper or duck tape) showing through. So instead of a bookmark, I chose to make a set of Artist Trading Cards (ATC).  

Usually, ATC sets are multiple cards of the same design. Instead, I chose to make a set of cards with six unique designs, all based on the same three tapes. Once that decision was made, I went wild. 

The first card used that "look through a hole" idea. A heart shape is cut out of the red tape, allowing the heart tape to show through. Then I cut five little hearts from the tape and floated them at the top of the card.

With the second card, I decided to use that red heart I'd just cut. I didn't care for the "seam" where the two pieces of tape came together, So I covered it with a small strip of blue. Adding the second strip made it a "feature" instead of a  "bug."

I liked the look of the heart tape as background, so I used it again on the third card. This time, I really made the lines a feature by turning blue and red strips into a plaid.

Then I wanted to find a way to use the heart tape without needing a seam. So I put some on the card vertically, and featured the blue tape as the main background. I couldn't seem to cut three red hearts the same size and shape no matter how many times I tried. So I turned lemons into lemonade by using graduated sizes, stacked vertically.

That being done, I now had a strip of red tape with hearts cut out. This was another chance to allow the design to show through the holes again. I used the blue border as an accent.

Finally, I had the idea to make a heart with a hole in it. That idea came through the frustration of trying to cut the hearts in card #4. So I used the heart tape (horizontally) as background, accent strips of red to cover the seam, and three sizes of blue hearts as the feature.

The back of each ATC has a label with the name of the card set, "Ducky Hearts." It also has the artist's email address, the creation date, the artist's signature, and a fraction that indicates the card number and how many in the set. This shows the first card in a set of six. Then I added a little heart to tie the front and back together.

This was a very fun way to spend a few hours in my Studio! I'm looking forward to the next challenge. Until then, I'll be posting more Heart Extras. I already have some more photos ready to post.

Four of these ATCs are spoken for. If you'd like to do a trade, I still have two. Send me an e-mail and we'll set up the trade.  

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Room for Tea

A bit of historical trivia

Do you know this stuff is actually called duck tape? It's because there is duck cloth (once commonly used for sails) that this originates from. The inventors of our favorite holds-the-world-together tape put adhesive on the back of duck cloth and produced duck tape. It's actually not recommended you use it for your (air) ducts.

 

On to the challenge...

 

A (fun? interesting?) fact about me: I love coffee and tea. I have quite a bit of the stuff and accoutrements around my apartment. Drip coffee maker, french press, espresso maker, hot pot, whole bean, ground, Via, tea in bags, loose tea from stores, loose tea made my people I know, infusers, even odd (read: birthday cake flavored, Turkish, and even fictional universe) hot chocolates. It's a bit of a mess. I have a whole section of kitchen counter top devoted to drink options. At some point it dawned on me today that I could use my duck tape to make a cute little tea holder instead of having a bajillion boxes on the counter. Thus, I present to you, my tea holder.

There is something super amusing to me about my hot drinks being stored in the penguin box. It seems so appropriate. I also got to break out my label maker to label the two major sections, which makes me quite happy. Black teas include super Irish breakfast, Earl grey, chai, and straight up black. Herbals include mint, chamomile, an interesting sweet cinnamon spice herbal tea, some random fruit teas, and lavender-chamomile made by my best friend and Lovely by a friend of a friend (tho it's not exactly herbal).

This by no means holds all my teas, but it's an excellent option for many teas. Plus it took me about a half an hour to make start to finish (not including the extra hour it's taken to remove leftover adhesive from my hands). I'm quite satisfied with this result. The pattern wasn't aligned as well as Jeanne did hers, but I don't need it to be. It's just right for me :)

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the tea is made from a bunch of plants and most of teas are from leaves.

Duck Tape Will Fix Anything!

RAINBOW DUCK TAPE!

(Yes, I spelled it DUCK on purpose ;)  )

This first beauty was both an idea from pintrest and a suggestion from mom. It's an old peanut container that I chopped the top off of to store my pens, pencils, highlighters, scissors (not pictured), and other necessities (you can see a small yellow screwdriver in the back).  

At first, I just had them dropped in there with some makeshift dividers. Mom's suggestion was that I grab old toiletpaper tubes to make individual compartments. Looks great, thanks mom!

This guy is a writing notebook mom gave me when I told her the one I'm using now is almost full. Yes, that's a stripe of normal duct tape, and no, it's not a rainbow color, but hey, it's my project, so what I say works, works, lol.

I've got plenty of rainbow duct tape left over, so I'll probably be doing more projects soon.



I swear I'll get that ornament challenge done sometime!

Duct Tape Challenge!

Wandering through the hardware section of our grocery store, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw all the cute new patterns that duct tape now sports. 

It was the penguins that got me first. Julie has a thing for penguins. So I bought it, not knowing what I'd do with it.

Another day, I was at WalMart. They have an even bigger selection of patterned duct tape. I found the polka dots for Jodie. 

And the crazy multi-colored rainbow print for Jeanne. I saw an art project in the making.

If this was to become an AuralArtists challenge, I needed some hearts for myself. But none could be found locally. Amazon.com to the rescue!

So my challenge is ... use your duct tape to create or decorate! I've gathered some pins over on Pinterest to get the creative juices flowing. Do one of them, or use them as a jumping off point. You can add other duct tape to the mix if you like. You can use any other material to go with your project. Just have your duct tape be a focal point of your design. Let's see if we can have our projects done by the end of June or middle of July (since Jodie will be overseas).

Ready ... Set ... GO!

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