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Working with floral tape

As you read in my earlier post, I recently tried Martha Stewart’s autumn wreath from her Michael’s craft collection. The wreath’s leaves are held together with floral tape. This was the first time I worked with floral tape, and I came up with some tips and tricks that might help you the next time you craft with the sticky substance.

The one tip that came with Martha’s kit was to “stretch the tape.” What they should have said was, “CONTINUALLY stretch the tape, but not too tight.” Stretching floral tape helps it stick to the tape itself and the materials you’re working with. But if you pull the tape too tight, it will snap. So stretch the tape, but do it cautiously.

Keep a damp paper towel close. Floral tape is terribly sticky, and my hands were a gross mess by the time I finished the wreath.

Work with small pieces. If you take a piece too long, it will twist and bind up on you just like a bad piece of Scotch tape. I made the mistake of thinking I needed to be working with one continual piece.

Smooth the tape as you go. When you’re wrapping the tape, use your thumb to smooth the tape against itself. I found this helped a lot with keeping the tape in place.

Hopefully these tips helped. I thought floral tape was strictly for making floral centerpieces, but floral tape does have a variety of crafty purposes.

These are my tips. Does anyone else have any words of floral tape wisdom?

5 Comments so far

  1. Reply to this comment On January 29, 2008 at 8:15 am Handmade Detroit » Product review: Martha Stewart Photo Frame Kit said:

    [...] Working with floral tape [...]

  2. Reply to this comment On June 2, 2009 at 1:43 pm Katie said:

    Hello from Louisiana! I make “Bayou Blossoms” (floral-topped pens), and use floral tape to wrap the “stems.” No one wants to use sticky pens, so I started experimenting. I don’t have any tips to keep your hands clean while you’re working, but once your project is complete, sprinkle it with a fine coat of baby powder. It makes the lines of the floral tape visible at first, but rubbing the coated area with clean hands helps remove excess powder. Good luck!

  3. Reply to this comment On June 28, 2009 at 2:38 pm tess said:

    i bought the ‘Martha stewart encyclopedia of crafts’ and in it you can make tissue flowers. it said in it to wrap the floral tape around the stem to hold everything together but the tape just doesn’t stick to the stem and keeps unraveling-i’m finding that I’ll have almost finished the creation and then it all unravels nd all of the petals fall out and i have to start again. this isn’t only annoying but also time consuming and expensive as buying 20 rolls of floral tape isn’t exactly cheap! Any suggestions?

  4. Reply to this comment On October 17, 2009 at 3:48 pm Maddy Nupp McDonald said:

    Tess, Don’t forget to slightly tug at the tape as you’re using it. The floral tape has wax embedded in it, and if it’s not tugged, it doesn’t warm up and stick to itself. And if you’re having trouble getting used to the tape, practice wrapping it around a pencil before using it for your project. You’ll get a feel for it, and then love it.

    You can also always glue pieces together with tacky glue to hold them under the tape.

    Thanks Katie for the powder tip! I love it! I’ll try it :o)

    Thanks Lish for the great post!

    Have a great day! :o)

  5. Reply to this comment On November 4, 2009 at 3:04 pm Kandi said:

    Thanks so much for this! I was having the very same problem Tess had. Will go back and try again tugging the tape as you recommend.

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This post was written by Lish on October 25th, 2007. She filed it in the Projects category , and tagged it with . So far, 5 people have responded. If you enjoyed it and you'd like to read some related posts, try one of these:

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