Duct Tape Wallet and Change Purse
So I finally figured out the perfect crafty Christmas gift for my geek brother: A duct tape wallet. (I'm glad Comfits posted inspirationally about her checkbook cover here:
http://www.craftster.org/yabbse/index.php?board=11;action=display;threadid=323)
I used these directions as a starting point:
http://www.rpi.edu/~kirkd/dtwallet_making.htmlBut basically I just read them, digested them, and then winged it.
I bought a big roll of generic silver duct tape and four small colored Duck brand duct tape rolls in a canister. I constructed all the basic sheets out of silver and did much of the assembly with silver, then used the pretty colored parts for trim and some of the assembly. I made the main part of the wallet first, a big folded-in-half sheet, taped together at the edges. This is for bills. I made sure it was the right size by comparing it to my actual, non-duct-tape wallet.
I made the ID window by taking clear heavy-duty mailing tape, folding it in half to make a clear, flexible plastic sheet, then taping blue tape around it as a frame. Then I made a smaller sheet, folded it in half for a pocket on the left hand side, and on top of it taped the ID window. Taped the sides of the back flap to the left side of the wallet, then folded up the front flap with ID frame and taped that down. So I had three pockets behind the window, one for the ID, then another 2 receipt pockets behind it. Taped all that on.
On the right I just made two small card holder pockets. I made them by folding up a centimeter in the back, taping across the top of that, then folding up the main body of the pocket and taping down. Then I did the second one the same way, just below the first. The fold-up bit was meant to insure my brother's cards didn't get duct tape glue on them, which I feared they might if it was just a sheet taped on with no fold-up bit. Put a card in too hard, it gets down below where the duct tape sheet is and gets glue on it, see? I think I did most of the pockets in this project that way to avoid this situation... I hope I did it on all of them! But I think on the left side maybe not. Oops.
Then some blue trim, and I was done!
My girlfriend saw me constructing this project, and after first noting that I could have bought a wallet for the money I spent on duct tape (so not the point!) asked me to make her a change purse. She had a plastic one given out at school with a zip-lock style zipper thing at the top, which had broken very soon after it was given out. But it still had the keychain attachment, which came on a plastic post thingy, which I could reuse.
First I constructed a main pocket for her cards and stuff, then cut out a window and used clear plastic mailing tape, as above, to allow her to show off her beautiful student ID picture. (Everyone loves a student ID photo, right?) Again, this was all done with silver tape, topped with red tape for beauty. Then on the back, I made a smaller strip, long enough to form the front, back and top flap of a change purse. Then I accordion-folded little tiny sheets for expandable sides. The whole change pocket section stayed silver.
I cut a hole for the post of the keychain attacher on the top center front section, and a slit above that on the fold of the closing flap so the plastic part holding the post could go through, then I put it on and stuck it together.
The flap of the main pocket goes over the flap of the change purse, and there's sticky-backed velcro on both flaps. (Gluing on the sew-on style velcro does not work. I tried superglue and hot glue before giving up. But the sticky-backed velcro worked great.) I did all the trim in this with red duct tape, but she found that a little overly girly. It kind of looked like a red fake-leather pocketbook. So she requested some stripes in black. I then cut the black stripes to go around the window and the black squares on the back, which looked quite kicky if I do say so myself.
The stripes were the hardest part of the whole thing, though. The reason is that scissors get too gluey to cut straight after one cut. This is fine for most of the trim and construction work - you use the natural straight edge as your straight line and the messed-up line doesn't show against the rest of the tape of the same color. But obviously these stripes were meant to be contrasty, so all edges needed to be straight.
Ended up making sure the stripes were short enough to cut in one swipe, then doing each cut and then wiping the blades of my scissors with a bit of Goo-Gone on a paper towel. Little tedious, but what can you do?
All the directions about duct tape stuff say to use x-acto knives, but those are a pain. I prefer scissors.
The result:
the front
the back
Top flap open, changepurse closed.
Look into both pockets.
I think if I were to do this project again, I'd be more vigilant about making sure the bottoms and sides of all pockets have no chance of getting glue on anything, by using tape glued from both inside and outside. I think I'd also make sure pockets only had tape overlapping so that the transition is from a higher piece of tape to a lower piece of tape, clapboard-siding-style, to prevent anything catching on the edge of a piece of tape. Still, these turned out pretty well.
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