If you are not one for bureaucracy or rigid conformity, but you do love things that are well designed and put together, then these exclusive red tape earrings are certain to get you noticed for your playful and elegant individuality.

The red tape used to make this jewelry comes from records held in the National Archives. As the Archives works to protect and preserve our nation's records, improvements to storage methods mean that documents are no longer tri-folded and tied together with red tape. Archivists are "cutting the red tape" and protecting our precious artifacts using the newest approved methods of preservation.

By the end of the American Civil War, the practice of binding important documents with red ribbon was common throughout the western world. Civil War veterans' records were bound in red ribbon, and the difficulty in obtaining those records to file pension claims led to the modern American use of the term "red tape."