'The Tackifier' Blog by FindTape

If you are a millennial or have a millennial living in your home, you are no doubt aware that teens are using their creative talents to ask the most important question in spring..."Want to go to prom?" Gone are the days of simple hallway conversations between classes and passed notes from your best friends. Our kids are finding more and more innovative ways to entice each other to prom. The good news is that Duck Brand, marketed by ShurTech Brands LLC, celebrated this new trend by awarding three winners $1,000 for their promposals!

Stuck-at-Prom Duct Tape Promposal

Duck brand invited students to use the vibrant assortment of Duck Tape® colors, designs and crafting tapes – as well as its original silver – to create their fun and unique promposal, and then share their stories on social media for a chance to win one of three $1,000 prizes to help offset the costs of prom. High school students posted a photo entry via Twitter or Instragram using hashtags #DuckTapePromposal and #Sweepstakes, Winners were chosen at random and just announced.

FindTape.com offers over 35 unique Duck Brand duct tapes for all of your most colorful and special projects. Low prices, fast delivery and easy shopping. Good luck...and we hope they say YES!

Mark Twain was a scrapbooker with a big appreciation for adhesive. In fact, he was so passionate about scrapbooking that in 1872 he invented a scrapbook with preinstalled gummed strips. It turned out to be one of his most profitable inventions.

Scrapbooking became popular in the 19th century with the explosion of newspapers and magazines, according to Ellen Garvey, author of Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance. People clipped articles and pasted them into books to keep track of interesting news and information.

But scrapbooks also have a place in civil rights history. Women suffragists and African-Americans created scrapbooks as a way to express their political viewpoints, Garvey says. (Check out her more detailed discussion on this topic at a program hosted by the American Antiquarian Society here.)

More than a century later, the appeal of scrapbooking hasn't diminished. On May 2, thousands of crafters will celebrate National Scrapbooking Day. Of course, today's scrapbookers have many more design options, with dozens of adhesive tapes to choose from.

As you prepare for National Scrapbooking Day, here are a few adhesive tapes to help add patterns, colors, and texture to your scrapbooking project.

Easy Application

Many scrapbookers use ATG dispensers to make it easier to apply adhesive tape to pages. JVCC ATG-7502 ATG Tape offers good adhesion to paper. Plus, it's acid neutral, which is essential for securing photographs without harming them. Another great tape is Scapa T002 ATG Tape, also acid or pH-neutral with an acrylic adhesive and is very easy to work with.

Many scrapbookers favor electronic cutting machines such as those from Cricut®. The Duck Brand Prism Crafting Tape works well in these, and it features a unique holographic / prismatic effect to add shine and dimension to projects. Patterns include small stars, squares and lots of dots.

Decorative Design

Imaginative projects require dozens of colors, designs, and textures, and these adhesive tapes offer no shortage. Duck Brand Printed Duck Tape is a patterned duct tape that tears easily by hand without curling and conforms to uneven surfaces. It's available in patterns such as ACU digital camouflage, black and white checker, blue tie-dye, dragon, hot rod flames, hardwood camouflage, leopard, orange tie-dye, paint splatter, pink zebra, skulls and zig-zag zebra.

For more, shall we say, illuminating projects, Duck Brand Glow-in-the-Dark Gaffer Tape Sheets provide a decorative element. They’re available in 8-1/2 inch x 10 inch display cards (the material area is approximately 4-1/4 inch x 10 inch) and are photoluminescent after the tape is activated by an artificial or natural light source. Sheets are available in a variety of shapes including numbers, letters, stars and moon, and circles and stripes, as well as a plain sheet.

To add texture to a project, Duck Brand Fabric Crafting Tape is a good choice. It’s a cloth fabric tape, available in several patterns: yellow speckled dot, pink with brown dots and white squares, coral multi stripe and blue pin dot.

We discussed Washi paper tape in a previous blog post, here, but it too is a popular option for adding patterns, color, and texture to your scrapbook page.

Duck Brand Ducklings Mini Duct Tape Rolls are perfect for trimming because they are very small. They're available in a multitude of colors and patterns, including black, blue surf flower, blue leopard, chrome, neon pink, neon lime green, pink zebra, rainbow, zig zag and paint splatter.

Working with Photos

When working with photographs, an acid free/pH neutral adhesive is essential. Acid can cause the tape's adhesive to yellow over time thereby ruining the image. 3M Scotch 908 ATG Gold Tape is photo safe in accordance with both Black and White Photographic Activity Tests and Color Photographic Activity Tests (per ANSI IT9.16).

There are times when you'll want your photos have a bit more pop. One way to give them a bit of dimension is to use double-side foam mounting tape. 3M Scotch 108 Removable Foam Mounting Squares are approximately 1/16 inch thick and add just enough lift to make your photos stand out.

National Scrapbooking Day

Celebrate National Scrapbooking Day by joining a scrapbooking event or group. You can find an event near you using community sites such as Meetup.com. In the meantime, make sure you order your scrapbooking supplies well in advance, so you have everything you need.

Spring is the season of home improvement. And now that it's almost here, many people are considering ways to freshen up their homes and offices. One of the best ways to do this is to paint your walls.

Not only will this brighten your mood, but it's also a good investment – especially if you're planning to sell during the spring housing market. A freshly painted interior will help the house show better to prospective buyers.

Whether you plan to do-it-yourself or you're a longtime pro, you'll need to make some decisions about the type of painters tape to use. Your choice will depend upon the type of surface being painted, whether it's indoor or out, and any creative or artistic requirements.

Here's a quick primer to help you choose the right painters tape for your project. And don't forget to check for removal tips at the end of this post.

Why use painters tape and not other types of tape?

Unlike other types of masking tape, painters tape is specially designed for painting applications where clean removal is a requirement including in cases when the tape is exposed to direct UV light. It can be used on glass, vinyl, metal, wood, painted walls and trim.

There are several types of painters tape, and which one you choose depends upon the job you need it for.

Protect floors and furniture

As you prep your room for painting, you'll want to keep floors and furniture from getting hit by paint drops. You can drape your furniture with old bed sheets and cover floors with plastic sheets, but as you paint, these can shift, inadvertently exposing the edges of furniture or leaving spots on floors.

Duck Brand Pre-Taped Painter's Drop Cloth is ideal for protecting floors and counters while painting. This is a 2-mil thick plastic drop film that is pre-applied to a removable painters tape. The plastic film resists tears and punctures, and the removable cloth tape holds the film securely in place, so there's no slipping and sliding. It's designed to remove cleanly for up to 4 weeks.

If you already have drop film or cloth and just need a double-sided tape to apply it, Nashua's CleanDrape is a great choice. The adhesive cloth side of the tape holds up the film or dropcloth while the adhesive painters tape side goes up against your drywall. CleanDrape's blue painters tape side offers clean removal for up to 14 days from a variety of surfaces.

Create Crisp Lines

Once you've got floors and furniture protected, it's time to prep the baseboards, walls and ceilings. Painters tape can be used as a guide to keep lines straight and protect surfaces from getting spotted with the wrong color.

Shurtape CP-60 Razor Edge tape is an ultra thin painters tape used to create razor sharp lines. Perfect for painting stripes, diamonds, and other patterns on walls. Its special paper backing reduces bleed-through and its low adhesion allows it to be easily removed after longer periods of time (for up to 60 days).

If you're painting a newly constructed house or an addition, you will probably be painting drywall. JVCC PGM-UV Painter's Grade Masking Tape is a good choice because its peel adhesion does not increase with time, allowing for removal from a wide variety of surfaces without damage.

3M Scotch-Blue 2090 Painters Tape for multi-surfaces is a medium adhesion tape ideal for paint masking on multiple surfaces including painted walls and trim, woodwork, glass and metal. It can be removed cleanly without adhesive transfer or surface damage for up to 14 days, even in direct sunlight. The backing saturant is solvent and moisture resistant so it resists paint bleed-through, and the adhesive doesn't transfer when the tape is wet. However, this tape is not designed for use on wallpapers, unpainted wallboard, wood floors or poorly bonded surfaces.

Tips for Delicate Surfaces

Delicate surfaces, such as wallpaper, freshly painted or unpainted wallboard and drywall, ceiling tiles, or masking for faux finishing, will require a lower adhesion tape. Shurtape CP-28 30-Day Purple Painters Tape, also known as 30 Day ShurRELEASE, can be applied to delicate surfaces for up to 30 days and then removed cleanly without causing surface damage.

Working with Other Special Surfaces

If you're painting special surfaces, such as cured painted walls, unfinished wood and wood trim, glass, metal, and stone, choose a medium-adhesion tape like FrogTape's Multi-Surface Painters Tape. This tape removes cleanly from most surfaces for up to 21 days (7 days in direct sunlight). Its patented PaintBlock® Technology prevents latex paint from bleeding by forming a micro-barrier along the edges (it reacts with the water in latex paint). You get a fully sealed tape edge resulting in the sharpest paint lines possible.

Creating Wall Designs

Painters tape also can be used to create paint designs on walls, furniture and other surfaces. FrogTape Shape Tape Painters Tape comes in three pre-cut repeating patterns: Chevron, Scallop and Wave. Creative painters can use this tape to create horizontal, vertical, or diagonal designs.

Taping Textured Surfaces

It can be tricky to create sharp lines on textured surfaces such as heavy knockdown, light knockdown or orange peel, without bleeding. But FrogTape Textured Surface Painters Tape comes with a bottle of Liquid PaintBlock® Edge Sealer™, which forms a micro-barrier sealing the edges of the tape. As a result, paint doesn't bleed and you can create super sharp stripes, patterns, and designs on these types of textured surfaces.

Removal Tips

When all of the painting is done, it's time to remove the tape. Here are a few tricks to make sure it all comes off smoothly.

1. Remove tape as soon as you are finished.bl
2. Score the edge of the tape with a razor blade first.
3. Pull the tape slowly and at a 90 degree angle.

If you're still uncertain about how to choose the right painters tape for your project, our Painters Tape Comparison Matrix will help you compare and choose based on a variety of criteria.

JVCC SLPT20 Designer Packaging Tape offers custom designs or patterns printed on standard polypropylene film carton sealing tape. This tape is great for projects such as crafting, hooping, fashion and others; but is also exceptional at basic box and carton sealing or for just grabbing attention. Patterns include boat flags, chain, color bars, dashed-line road, purple circles and scissor cut.

Duck Brand Printed Duck Duct Tape Patterns is patterned duct tape with high performance strength and moderate adhesion characteristics. Excellent for repairs, color-coding, fashion, crafting and imaginative projects. Patterns include ACU digital camouflage, black and white checker, blue tie-dye, dragon, hot rod flames, hardwood camouflage, leopard, orange tie-dye, paint splatter, pink zebra, skulls and zig-zag zebra.

Duck Brand Printed EZ Start Packaging Tape is a 2.6 mil thick high performance packaging tape loaded into a disposable dispenser. The tape offers a wide temperature range; doesn't split or tear; and offers ultraviolet resistance to eliminate yellowing and to increase shelf life. Patterns include black olives, peace sign, pink zebra and tie-dye.

Platypus Designer Duct Tape comes in 14 patterns which include Argyle, Candy Cane, Denim, Diamond Plate, Grass, Houndstooth, Jolly Roger, Leopard, Paisley, Polka Dot, Snowflake, Wicker, Wood Grain and Wool Stocking. It's the perfect tape to use for your next duct tape project. The polyethylene coated cloth is 10.5 mils thick and offers 32 ounces per inch of peel adhesion.

The double-sided film tape we typically sell for adhering window insulation film to the interior of windows during the winter season is JVCC DC-4109RS tape. If the film is heavier and you need a tape with a stronger adhesive then JVCC DC-4199CS would be another to look at. These would be the closest double-sided tapes our converter stocks which are similar to 3M's 2145C product for indoor insulator film mounting. As far as these tapes' removability you'd want to test them first on an inconspicuous part of the window frame to make sure it removes as desired. Please also remember the more adhesive the tape you go with the harder it will be to remove in the spring. Also both of these tapes are coated with an acrylic adhesive which provides moisture, UV and temperature resistance; however tapes with acrylic adhesive need a few minutes to an hour for the adhesive bond to set correctly when applying them. See our blog entry on general instructions on applying pressure-sensitive adhesive tape for more detailed instructions. Thank you.

UPDATE: We also now carry Duck Brand Window Kit Replacement Tape if you are looking for shorter length rolls for both indoor or outdoor window film installations.