Crafty Kite Night

This is my very first homemade kite!    Yes, it's made of wrapping paper.  Think it will fly?

It was easy to build.  It was easy for me anyway, since I mostly fetched things and took photos while I coaxed Jamie and Joe into building it.  I've being talking about building a kite for a long time, and finally assembled some components and found some easy to understand instructions.  Then all I had to do was lure the guys over with promises of beer and food.  No problems there. 

I'm implying that they were reluctant participants, but they were both more that willing to give it a try.  Show me a man who doesn't love craft night!  There are tools, measuring, and instructions to ignore, so it was right up their alley.  None of us had built kites before.  I have several old kite building books, which are surprisingly complicated, and because they are so old I wasn't familiar with much of the materials. We picked a basic design and ended up using a roll of wrapping paper.  My plan was to use Tyvek and Tyvek tape, but the roll of stuff I had turned out to be woven plastic and the tape wouldn't stick to it.  

We drilled some holes in the dowels (we used the wrong diameter dowels, and we forgot to cut to the right size so our kite is huge and flimsy), used wire and string to hold it together, then taped the wrapping paper to it.   

Next I'm going to make a tail and maybe paint a design on it.  If the weather is good this weekend, we're going to launch it.  Cross your fingers.  Brandon, who was at work while we built it, predicts that it will disintegrate before it gets in the sky.   What a doubter!