Sticky tape and post-its

I’m an office slash art supply junkie, and I must confess that whenever I hit the bookstore,I spend as much time in the supplies section as I do browsing books. And I end up carting out a bagful of supplies I don’t actually need — from yet another set of soft paintbrushes, or a new set of markers, or a nifty paper cutter — but I can’t seem to help myself!

Two supplies I really need to constantly replenish, however, are sticky tape (I’m partial to the Tartan brand) and post-its. I use, maybe, a roll of sticky tape a week for covering books (of course, I also use plastic cover), removing sticky price tags, and other random tasks (taping down a half-eaten bag of chips, labeling items in the fridge — I scrawl on the tape with a marker, etc), while I use post-its for marking passages I like in the books I’m reading and making notes about them, as well as putting up everyday reminders on my computer station at the office.

I write about sticky tape and post-its because I just read two books about them: Transparent Tape: Over 350 Super, Simple, and Surprising Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of by Vicki Lansky, and the Post-it book Ideas that Stick: 222 Ingenious, Creative, Practical, and Simply Preposterous Ways of Using Post-it Notes.

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Those pesky price stickers

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Some people like to keep the price tags on their books to remind them of the book’s provenance. I’mĀ  not one of them.

Aside from beingĀ  a compulsive plastic coverer (I can’t read a book that has not been covered in protective plastic), I’m a price sticker remover, and whenever I buy a new book my nails automatically itch to scrape off the price sticker. It just drives me crazy.

The problem is most price stickers are awfully sticky, and peeling them off takes forever, especially when the adhesive is so sticky that you can’t peel the sticker off as a whole (bookstores, please, do something about this!) and ten minutes later you’re left with a smudgy, sticky mess. It’s also annoying when the price sticker eats into the cover, leaving you with an ugly squarish patch (which is a regular occurence at my favorite bargain bookstore), or lifts some of the gloss from a brand new book.

Because I keep my nails short, they don’t offer much leverage when picking at price stickers, especially the really stubborn ones that refused to budge. So eventually I had to resort to other removal procedures.

Here are are two methods I use to remove price stickers.

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