Now this upcycle is so simple that I don’t think I really need to write a tutorial for it. But I’m going to anyway. Sort of.
Take an old, large paperback book. (As a former IT ninja support peon person, I have a library of certification books laying around. Unfortunately, since the certification industry likes to change tests every, oh, three years or so, many of the books I still have are woefully out of date. This is a decent way to upcycle them. If you don’t happen to have a books from a former IT career laying around, you can use phone books for this upcycle.) Also grab a pair of scissors and duct tape.
Duct tape, duct tape, duct tape. It’s fun to say! 
[Note to self: Time to stop channeling Deadpool...]
Book, duct tape, scissors
Cover the book in duct tape and you have…
Duct tape "work" book
A DUCT TAPE COVERED PHONE BOOK!
Um, yay?
Whatever would you use this for? (Other than, of course, admiring your duct tape handiwork?)
Well, one of the first toys I noticed at The Little Empress’ developmental preschool were the duct tape covered phone books. They are a simple, open ended toy that can be used for anything from heavy work activities to strength building exercise to toddler obstacle courses. One day, as I arrived to pick up TLE from school, one of her teachers was sitting close by as TLE set up an obstacle course for herself and hopped from book to book. That was when I knew I had to add this to our home sensory toy collection.
So what sort of activities can you do with this deceptively simple toy? Stay tuned…
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Copyright
Text and photographs copyrighted by Michelle N unless otherwise noted.
This is hilarious. I think i’ll go scrounge some old phone books RIGHT NOW.
Thanks for dropping by! I hope you find some fun uses for these!
I have to say that I was not expecting the “big reveal” of this project to be a duct tape covered phone book! I had to read that part 3 times to be certain I did not miss something. However, now that I think about it, this could be used for thousands of things. When I was a young girl, I would have used it to set up a room for my barbies. I might also have used it to showcase a knick knack or something, with a bit of fabric draped to cover the duct tape. Yep, I can see me doing that as an older child. I can picture other young children building roads, bridges, stepping stools and all kinds of adventures with a hefty supply of duct tape covered phone books. Who’d a thunk? It’s great that something so simple can be so incredibly diverse.
Thanks for dropping by! The beauty of something so deceptively simple as duct tape covered books is that children have no limitations with them. I’ve seen TLE stack them for a step stool, stack them just for fun, play toddler hopscotch. They’d make great weights to add some sturdiness to a play fort for older children.