Gift idea for a pre-teen boy – Hive and Nest

Since the holidays are coming up I thought I might be of assistance if you have a 9-13 year old boy that you’ll be gifting to.  Sometimes preteen boys can be a little hard to buy gifts for if you don’t want to get anything involving video games or weapons.  Don’t get me wrong, a nerf gun is always a popular present.  We have quite the arsenal at our house and I find nerf darts everywhere.  But I love to give gifts that encourage creativity and this one simply can’t be beat:

I know what you’re thinking:  huh? But duct tape has come a long way, baby.

There is a whole movement dedicated to making things from the stuff.  Wallets, of course, are the most common.  But the sky is really the limit.

There are several books with directions on making projects from duct tape.  We have Ductigami, which I can’t really recommend for boys because it has lots of suggestive comments.  Hopefully they go over my boys’ heads, but I would just rather avoid the whole thing.  York, our resident duct tape afficianado, also said that the projects in Ductigami all require a lot of tape. I ordered Stick It from Amazon a few days ago.  It looks very promising and I’ll let you know what I think after I’ve read it.

Here you can see York’s extensive duct tape assortment. (You can find the more traditional colors at Home Depot-type stores. The really great colorful stuff is available at JoAnne and Hobby Lobby. Not sure about Michaels or Roberts. I haven’t checked there.)  Here we  have a glove, two wallets, a sword with matching scabbard and a binder artfully covered with tape stripes.  This is just a taste of his collection.  

Honestly, this gift might get a weird reaction on Christmas morning, but it has certainly proven its staying power at our house.  My boys now have friends who beg to come over so they too can learn The Art of the Tape.

Update on 10/16: I received Stick It a few days ago and it’s great.  It has mostly smaller projects (bags, wallets, rings, armbands, ties) that look pretty cool.  Some of the projects won’t appeal to boys necessarily, until you point out that they can only have so many duct tape accessories of their own.  This book will give them great ideas on things to make for other people as well (hello Mother’s Day!)