Handmade Holidays, Part 3

The Big Kid

My oldest son is 14. He is into gunsmithing, art, electric guitar, and whatever else strikes his fancy. We bought him a new guitar for his 14th birthday. Just the guitar, some picks, and an amp. No case, stand, or strap. So my thoughts are now running toward supplementing the guitar, because I simply cannot make a gun at home. :P

Picks are not expensive. They run around .50 for something cheap or up to $3 for something more elaborate. FYI, I also do not know that much about guitars, just what I've experienced, so don't judge me there. However, I find that running to the music store every couple of months to get new picks has gotten tiresome. They get lost, stolen (can you believe that?) or the puppy puts a few sharp tooth holes in the ones left laying. He also REALLY needed the stand because he has no place to store his guitar. I have been told that a strap is also very useful and saves on shoulder strain.

So we'll start with the picks. Unfortunately, all I could find about duct tape picks was how to wrap a purchased pick in duct tape. Kind of defeated my purpose. But I did find some really great ideas on how to make picks from credit cards, old gift cards, CDs, DVDs, and anything else flat, plastic, and cut-able.

Cards:



DVDs:


Now I don't recommend going out to buy a pack of DVDs or CDs, but if you have any lying around that are scratched or broken, this is a great way to recycle them and find another useful purpose. It would take just a few minutes and you could have quite a few that you're not too worried about losing!

The second project is a guitar stand. There are a few different ways of doing this, but my favorite actually puts my minimal wood-working skills to the test. I found one good video, which I don't have the fancy wood working machines for, but I think I could do a fair job with a drill and some other hand tools.



Last but not least, I needed to find something for the strap. Straps run about $11 and up, so not too terribly expensive, but again, multiply that times 5 kids and we need to cut some costs somewhere! So I had 4 possible choices. 1. Knit it (takes too long and looks weird on a guy) 2. sew it (have about 3 projects already on the machine) 3. make a knotted guitar bar with rope (rope is expensive, need a lot, and takes too long) 4. duct tape! (guess which I chose?)



Well, I hope I have given you a few ideas today and maybe some new uses for duct tape. Yes, my family will probably receive a lot of duct tape gifts, but you gotta admit, they're pretty cool! And it's the thought that counts, right? :)