What to do with broken guitars? Here's a roundup of quirky ways to upcycle guitars that are too damaged to play.
Ok! Here's what I made with my Pick Punch (Enter to win the punch if you haven't already!). I've laid out this post tutorial style, but I hesitate to call this a tutorial because there are very few steps involved.
Not sure this needs any explanation. In honor of girls, eccentricity and independence day.
"Like most guitar players I eventually found myself without a guitar pick. In a pinch, I cut them out of materials I had on hand such as plastic lids and expired credit cards. I remember saying to myself, 'there must be an easier way!' So that's when the Pick Punch was born." Von Luhman, Inventor
The Pick Punch® has been available since 2009 but I saw it for the first time recently, when I worked on a post about re-using old credit cards and gift cards. I thought it looked like a genius product, so I wrote to the inventor/owner (Von Luhman) and asked if I could have one to test, then give away to you lovely doodle folk... he said yes! (FYI: Pick Punch® is a local business for me - I consider Indiana local and I'm thrilled to feature them!)
I learned to play acoustic guitar very young and was taught to pick with my fingers. So I've never used a pick myself. However, I know plenty of people who do, and they lose them all the time. For $24.95 this punch pops out a life-time's supply of 1-3/16″ (30mm) tall by 1-1/16″ (25.5mm) wide picks in the standard tear drop shape (351 or Fender shape). Here's what Von told me about the resulting picks:
We make picks here as good as, if not better than, a factory. And you can also make picks from materials that are not sold by the guitar industry, so it's actually better in many ways. You can put left or right handed bevels on our picks unlike factory picks (they tumble them with even bevels).
The punch is exactly what it looks like - a very strong stapler/paper punch. It arrived with a sanding block, which I wasn't sure I'd use but did. In the picture above, I have the yellow card positioned design-side up for the shot. However, if you flip the card over, you can see exactly where the shape will punch out and position it accordingly. Very handy for aesthetic purposes.
The punch works perfectly - cuts through the card with little effort and the resulting pick has a really clean edge that is quickly beveled/perfected with the sanding block. I popped out picks from two gift cards and a credit card. I was done in minutes and had ready-to-wear jewelry in another hour or so (see the tutorial for the guitar-pick earrings and pendant).
I'm as impressed with the Pick Punch® as I hoped to be and excited to send it to a new home! Giveaway opens 12:01 EST Tues, 7/3 and ends Fri, 7/6 at midnight. WINNER announced Sat 7/7. It's easy to score multiple entries and increase your chances of winning - enter below for details... (Open to US residents 18 and older)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Happy first Monday of July but...what happened to June? And half of 2012? Tick-tock, tick-tock. So... guess what the theme is this week? No, not clocks. Guitars! I got my first kid-sized acoustic guitar when I was 8, a not-quite-full-size and an actual teacher when I was 11 and I've had some version around ever since. I never trashed a guitar (I was a flaky, eccentric singer-songwriter). So, I'd never thought about repurposing the various bits and pieces of one until I found Stringcycle and saw what could be done with used-up strings. Since then, several posts have been brewing. They all go live this week.
The first - turning a trashed guitar into a clock! Clock mechanisms are cheap and easy to find - I say this with confidence because I once churned out book clocks to make extra money. This dramatic transformation from My Repurposed Life is a lot of fun and I'd love to see a version done with book pages! Please note that the clock face is an old CD. Note too the guitar picks used to frame the clock. Guitar picks will be a focal point this week! Get the whole tutorial here. (Via Handmade Spark)
I happened upon these three projects at different times (all using what I call corrugated cardboard) and it felt right to group them together. Clean-cut, very modern aesthetic ... great design etc. Let's bear in mind that the material is cardboard.
1. This amazing shelf is an Instructables masterpiece
2. Spotted the cardboard laptop stand at Green Upgrader
3. The mod organizer with the very clean lines is from Curbly
Neither paper nor plastic cups are actually "disposable" but we dispose of a lot of them! So much so, that they've become icons of our throwaway culture. The last time I got on a soapbox about the nastiness of some of the things we throw away (balloons), an anonymous industry person threw the book at me in a comment. Well, go ahead manufacturers of disposable cups! I'm not saying we shouldn't use them. But perhaps we could creatively repurpose them rather than dispose of them? And, in response to a comment thread on reddit: No, I don't really think anyone is actually going to craft with a used, lipstick-stained paper cup. But I do see completely unused "party supplies" being thrown out - those cups are fair game. And anything plastic can indeed be washed, reused and then repurposed. Or perhaps it's time to just look at these items in a new way: as cheap craft supplies, not disposable cups!? Here are 20+ ideas for you:
