To answer your question, yes, we do seem to have a fascination with colored duct tape around here.  First Easter baskets, then flip-flops and now… beach buckets!  Of course, our other recent fascination is our upcoming beach trip, so I wanted to decorate some basic beach buckets to take for each of the kids.  I bought the buckets and happened to sit them on the craft table next to the stack of duct tape I had used to make the flip-flops.  The colors matched perfectly!  That’s how I got the idea to use the duct tape to decorate the buckets.

I am not sure what made me brave enough to try and use my Cricut machine to cut out some designs but I thought I should give it a try!  First, I used an old, worn cutting mat that wasn’t very sticky anymore.  A new cutting mat would be far too sticky with the stickiness of the duct tape.  Two ultra sticky things would make a big, sticky mess!  If you don’t have an old mat, you can flip your mat over and cut on the back.  I tried that and it worked just fine.

You can either use one or more rows of duct tape on your mat depending on how big you want to make your letters.  I tried it both ways and the letters came out fine no matter how big I made them!  You should play with the settings on your machine a little to get the right pressure to cut through the tape.  I used a medium pressure setting and a slow speed, just in case.  The Cricut cut perfectly through the tape.

I removed the tape around the letters and that made it easy to peel up each individual letter.

Now, all I had to do was stick the letters on the beach pail.  To end up with a centered result, I always start with the middle letter and work my way out.  My dad taught me that back when I was a kid, working on posters all the time for school projects.  See, I did listen to you, Dad!

Once I had the name on, I felt it needed a little more decoration.  I went back to using the cookie cutters to trace the outline of a castle onto the duct tape.  I cut my castle out and centered it on my buckets under the name.  A row of polka dots (cut using the Cricut again) across the bottom and my buckets are complete!  I love how simple and cute they are!

I think the duct tape will be pretty weather-resistant and hold up well, but with five kids abusing them for a week at the beach, I will be sure to report and tell you how well they last.  At least the buckets will be really fancy when we show up!

UPDATE: The duct tape stuck perfectly to the bucket even after two weeks of daily use in the sand and sea!