Kids Get Creative With Duct Tape at Mentor Public Library

Everyone has heard that with duct tape you can fix almost anything. Well, almost anything.

Of course, American creativity knows no bounds and has found a way to create new things from this humble product, including prom dresses. While a prom dress made from duct tape may seem a little less bizarre than Lady Gaga’s meat dress, and certainly less controversial, making just about anything with duct tape seems to be a cool thing to do for teen and tweens, who gathered Friday afternoon at for Ductivities.

What are Ductivities? They are activities that focus on creating fashion, crafts and anything else with duct tape, and a little bit of imagination, of course.

“It’s a lot of fun, but very sticky,” said Librarian Amy Winter, who hosted Mentor Library's first Ductivities event. “We decided to have Ductivities because we wanted something that also would appeal to boys.”

About 15 kids, including a few boys, took eight rolls of duct tape and went to work with scissors and a lot of patience to make wallets and flower pens.

Certainly, today’s duct tape is not what your dad used to fix something around the house. While everyone is familiar with the ubiquitous silver duct tape that's been around since the 1940s, today's duct tape is sold in all types of colors such as aqua, fluorescent green, hot pink, orange, yellow and black.

Duct tape also comes in patterns such as Zig-Zag Zebra, Spotted Leopard and Hot Rod. What’s more, ShurTech Brands LLC of Avon Lake, a major duct tape manufacturer, recently introduced a college duct tape brand featuring logos from popular college teams.

So, the kids had plenty of colors to work with to create their wallets and pen flowers.

“This looks so simple, but it’s so hard,” lamented one girl.

“It would be way easier if the duct tape wasn’t so sticky,” chimed another girl.

At first, a lot of kids struggled with cutting and ripping the duct tape, and then tried to prevent the tape from sticking together.Winter patiently gave the children step-by-step instructions and tips, while darting around the table to help those who needed an extra hand.

“One girl mentioned she really liked Ductivities, and planned on opening a business to make wallets for people in their favorite colors,” said Winter.

After about 30 minutes, the kids adapted to handling the duct tape and slowly began to see their wallets and flower pens form into colorful works of art.

The wallets will come in handy to stash some of that allowance money, and the flower pens will be a surprise summer gift for a few Mentor moms.