Five Dollar Decor - Tape

Every Friday, I'll be posting Five Dollar Decor--five ideas for interior decorating that can be achieved by spending only five dollars. For five dollars, you can add one new element to your in-home design. For twenty-five, you can revamp an entire room around a new theme. Hmm... a trip to Starbucks, or a weekend redecorating proje

Geeks, mechanics, theater people, and college students the world around know the value of a good piece of tape. I use tape way more than I should, probably, but I can't help it. It has everything going for it--it's sticky, it's decorative (if used properly), it's versatile, it's cheap.

Today, I'd like to feature five decorative uses of regular old tape. Prepare to have your mind blown.





Every wall treatment is different. Before beginning a project that involves putting tape on a wall, please stick a piece of the tape in question to an inconspicuous part of your wall, leave it there for a day, remove it, and make sure that it doesn't pull off your paint or wallpaper.


1. Electrical Tape Headboard

Apartment Therapy has a DIY how-to for creating a faux wrought-iron headboard with nothing but a 3-pack of electrical tape purchased at the dollar store. This one is pretty basic, but you might be able to make it fancier. The beauty of tape is that it's fairly easy to experiment until you get something you like.

That beautiful "headboard" you see on the right, there? That cost a total of $1.07

2. Mondrian-style Wall Art

To continue with the electrical tape theme, this Instructables page has directions for creating a piece of Mondrian-inspired wall art with nothing but electrical tape and colored acetate. I can see it going very well with the electrical tape headboard shown above, actually. You could build a whole room themed around things that are taped-on versions of the real thing. Why not add an electrical tape silhouette of a wrought-iron chair and table while you're at it?

I have a guest room that needs redecorating. This makes little wheels spin in my head.

3. Faux Leaded Glass

My parents' house has several beautiful examples of this. When they bought the house, we thought at first that it had leaded glass windows, but on closer inspection we realized that it was just leading strips applied to the glass in geometric designs copied from Frank Lloyd Wright, Lous Comfort Tiffany, and other designers of the era.

Leading strips are sold at craft stores, and are basically long, thin strips of special tape designed to look like the lead in stained glass windows. They contain no real lead, and can be removed from the glass once you're done with them. Prices usually run about $6 for a package, so to keep this strictly under $5 you'll have to shop sales or use a coupon.

For a stained-glass look, you could try putting contact paper on the window and applying leading strips (or, if you want to be really frugal about it, carefully torn or cut strips of duct tape) over that. Hmm.. I smell a weekend project.

4. Striping a Wall


This article on iVillage is a how-to for creating a look similar to last week's five dollar decor suggestion of painted vertical stripes.. using colored masking tape. I really love the unique look that this method creates, and masking tape is cheap, easy to apply, and equally easy to remove.

I googled "colored masking tape" and found a lot of sources, the cheapest running between two and four dollars a roll. So, if you want to use multiple colors you're going to have to spend a little more than five, but even with one color--or even only covering one wall--you can get a great striped look going and add a lot of color and interest to a room.

Seriously.. look at that picture. Can you believe that's tape?

5. Cover It 

One of the big trends currently sweeping the Internet craft blog world (or, as I like to think of it, craftopia), is decorative tapes. Originally from Japan but beginning to be manufactured and sold all over the place in the states as well, thanks to the likes of our friend Martha Stewart, these are tapes that are meant for decor. You can get them in every color and pattern imaginable, from flowers to happy faces to argyle.

This article at the AK-Magnolia House blog talks about some of the things you can do with washi tape, and where you can get it. One roll is going to run about $5, so you want to be sure you know beforehand what you want to do with it.

Someone over at Ohdeedoh used it to cover some pre-made letter cutouts for a child's room. In this picture, from Country Living, you can see tape stripes on a lampshade, and I'd wager that you could also use it to recreate the look of those mismatched plates by taping onto dollar store plates and hanging them.


Scrimpalicious loves feedback! If you've tried one of the Five Dollar Decor projects, or have an idea you'd like featured, be sure to leave a comment here or on facebook in order to be featured on the blog or facebook page.