How to Make Duct Tape Roses

No artificial flower can possibly smell as sweet or take the place of real flowers. Sometimes though you might prefer the staying power of a fake flower. You can buy fake flowers made of many materials, but if you like to do things yourself, a duct tape rose is quick and easy and really very clever. You can make a small bouquet to keep in a bathroom or attach one to a safety pin for a cute lapel pin (I’m wearing one in my profile picture).

Duct tape now comes in some wonderful colors, so don’t picture a bouquet of silver roses, unless that’s exactly what you want.

What you need:

• Duct tape (any color you like for the flowers, plus green for the stems)
• Exacto knife or any sharp edged blade
• Protected Cutting surface
• Pipe cleaner (optional)

Preparation – Don’t do this on your dining room table without something to protect the surface! I actually use the inside of an old cabinet door, but thick cardboard with a slick surface is probably sufficient to protect your table. Because the first step places the tape sticky side down, you want to use something that won’t bond to the duct tape.

What you must know about duct tape: the adhesive bonds to itself. You can place the adhesive against the slick side of duct tape and still be able to force it apart and reposition it, but once you’ve placed sticky to sticky, you might as well throw it away as try to move it.

Note: photos of the process will be found through the link at the bottom of the article.

Take a long strip of duct tape (12 inches for a medium rose) and place it sticky side down on your surface.

Using your exacto knife, make cuts in the tape at about 1 inch intervals (you can vary the size as you get used to the method). If you have a 12 inch strip of duct tape, you’ll end up with 12 one inch pieces.

Take one of the one inch segments and place it slick side down (sticky side up) on the surface. (photo 1)

Fold one corner over and stick it adhesive to adhesive. Make sure not to go all the way to the edge, but leave a bit of adhesive showing along the side. (photo 2)

Fold the other corner over at an angle so that the adhesive side you left touches adhesive under the folded edge. Pointed segment made. (photo 3)

For the center of the bud, roll this pointed piece of duct tape into a tube. You may want to put a pipe cleaner in the middle of the bud as a stem, in which case roll the adhesive around the pipe cleaner. Let the pointed edge have a bit more openness than the bottom and avoid having the pipe cleaner show. (photo 4)

Continue folding one inch segments into pointed segments of tape.

Wrap the adhesive bottom of the pointed segments around the bud, being sure to stagger the points.

Fold the points outward and down as you get farther and farther out.

When you are satisfied with your flower, start wrapping green duct tape around the stem from the top to the bottom. You might find it easier if you slice the green tape down the center, making a thinner long strip. If you’ve use a pipe cleaner, be sure to cover it completely. The flowers I’ve made do not have a pipe cleaner in them, it’s just duct tape wound over itself.

If you want a fancy finish, cut some green tape into points to stick on the bottom of the roses. This will also help hide the joining of the stem to the flower.

Cute!

Tips

• If you want to do this with kids, the parent can do all the cutting and let the kids just do the folding and wrapping.
• Expect to throw away the occasional strip that got stuck to itself badly.
• Add a safety pin when you’re wrapping the stem to make a cute lapel pin.

Warning:

• Exacto knives are SHARP – keep away from kids.
• Be careful of your work surface too.

For step by step photos please view How to make Duct Tape Roses - with photos