Painter's Tape Tube and Ribbon Bangle

The school I teach at uses painter's tape to hang up pictures. The school loves it because it's cheap and it doesn't harm the paint on the walls. Teachers find it frustrating because the adhesive isn't strong enough for anything other than thin computer paper. However, one really nice thing is that, when you hit the end of the roll, you are given a nice, clean cardboard tube. Instead of throwing the most recent tube out, I decided to use some of my ribbon left over from my wedding (remember that part where I said I'd leave all that stuff alone? Yeah, I lied.) and make a bangle.

The supplies are simple enough: an empty tape tube, ribbon, and a hot glue gun.

I started with a healthy dab of hot glue on the inside of the tube. Never mind the shoddy state of my hot glue gun. The soot never came off from a botched melted spoon rose, but that's for another time.

Given that I wanted my ribbon to wrap diagonally, I glued the ribbon on at a angle, careful to keep everything contained within the inner edges of the tube.

I wrapped around the tube, careful to keep the slack very tight. I would glue the ribbon into place each time it went around the inner section of the tube.

After I wrapped the tube completely in blue ribbon, I decided to accent it with ruby red ribbon. I thought of making two red lines on opposite ends, but made a last-minute decision and placed the red lines side by side instead. Like the blue ribbon, I keep the slack incredibly tight and glued each layer with a dab of hot glue on the inside of the tube.


I feel like this would be a good Girl Scout's craft to do. Definitely something I would never be able to do with my Pre-K students -- and definitely not now, with my toddler students. At least not with hot glue.