Sticky style: Why waste that duct tape holding stuff together when you can make a wallet out of it? Or even a jacket?

BY EILEEN BRADY
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

It’s sticky, gray and it’s easily torn. Best of all, it’s cheap. 
Duct tape, it’s been said, can fix anything. 
And in the hands of 17-year-old Steve Cowgur, duct tape can be used to create just about anything, from gloves and shoes to mini-disc cases and speaker covers. 
Steve specializes in duct-tape wallets, which he sells for $3 each (colors are extra) to friends at school and at church. One of his teachers bought five of them to give as Christmas gifts. 
“It’s a novelty item,” Steve says. “They last forever — well, not forever, but a long time.” 
It takes him about a half-hour to create a wallet from the first strip of tape to the finished product, complete with a pull-out driver’s license holder, the window of which is the only part not completely made of duct tape. 
He does it from memory,

using a small paper cutter, scissors and the ever-present roll of tape. 
His duct-tape wallets are hidden in back pockets, but Steve’s most time-consuming project — a duct-tape tuxedo jacket — became a showpiece for his junior prom on May 6. 
Last summer, Steve made the jacket with a black duct-tape collar and real buttons. Using one of his dress shirts as a model, it took about six hours to complete the jacket’s main body, complete with a yoke and pockets. An hour went into each sleeve. He was still working on the finishing touches the night before the prom. 
There is no fabric in the jacket — just duct tape and the thread for the buttons. 
“I had always kind of joked about making a full three-piece suit for prom,” says Steve, who originally had planned to save it for his senior year. But because he hopes to graduate early from Rochester High School, he wasn’t sure whether he’d make it to his senior prom. So he decided to make his duct-tape debut this year, which didn’t leave time to finish a full suit. 
Of course, Steve checked with his date, Ashley Neal of Winchester, to make sure she didn’t mind if he showed up at prom in a duct-tape creation. He even had considered creating a duct-tape corsage for her. 
Ashley was a good sport about it all, he says. 
The jacket was extremely hot, so he eventually took it off, putting it back on several times at the request of friends who arrived later. “There was no ventilation at all. It was like wearing Saran Wrap,” Steve says. 
His peers seemed to accept his alternative sense of style. 
“I had people come up that I didn’t even know taking pictures of me,” he says. 
Steve started making items out of duct tape about four years ago, on the eve of a family snowboarding trip to Minneapolis. Steve was too excited to sleep, and when he glanced at a roll of duct tape, he had an idea. He stayed up late, creating his first wallet, which he still has. 
He had known about the versatility of duct tape, but he learned even more about its capacity for creative taping. 
“Not till I started making stuff out of it did I start appreciating it,” he deadpans. “I mean, you can seriously make anything out of it.” 
Since then, he’s been on a roll. Usually, his roll is Manco Duck Tape, which is his favorite brand because it tears with a pretty straight edge. He used to buy it for $7 a roll at his local hardware store, but he discovered that it’s several dollars cheaper at Wal-Mart. There’s always a roll of the adhesive tape in Steve’s backpack, and he puts it to use when he’s bored in class. 
He has made shoes completely from duct tape and worn them to school. He’s also made a belt, mittens, a can holder that has a lid with his trademark latch, snowboarding gloves, a book cover, a holster for a roll of duct tape, a mini-disc player carrier with a belt loop, a case for playing cards, a slipper. He gets ideas from the members of his youth group at Rochester Christian Church who have a “mutual love” for duct tape. 
“Most of the stuff I make is for a purpose,” he says. 
Steve says he wasn’t an artistic kid, but he was good at building things with Legos. 
His next duct-tape goal is to make a pair of shorts that are pants, too (“like the Abercrombie & Fitch ones that come off”). If he doesn’t graduate early, maybe he’ll wear them to his senior prom.