I had so much fun writing up my lazy girls’ room decorating post that I thought I’d do another one. And, using the powers of technology, I’m writing it early and scheduling it to go live on Sunday so I can take a weekend sabbatical from the interwebz.
Today’s lazy decorating: guitar pick art.
I wanted to do something DIY with the girls for Father’s Day, but having recently attempted and failed at Mother’s Day crafting, I was wary of trying another elaborate project. I also don’t like how loaded these mutual adult/kid craft projects can become. Pinterest makes me wary because their kid projects do not look like kids actually did them. I want my children’s own stamp to be on their gift crafts. At the same time, I do not want shitty art in my house. It can be really hard not to direct their process or “fix” the little mistakes that make something potentially great just look like a hot mess.
Fortunately, guitar pick art is the perfect shared project.
We did this project at the last minute. I was inspired to do the art by my husband. Not only does he leave guitar picks and empty nicotine gum packets in his pockets as laundry tips for me; he also sorted through the hundreds of picks he’s bought over the years to give the girls their own stash so they’d stop playing with his.
Brian is a musician and works for a guitar store, and buying picks for guitar dudes is kind of like buying knitting needles for knitters. Each pick has a different shape, weight, or feel that makes it different. Different picks for different styles, strings, etc. So we have tons of these things around the house, and he’d just conveniently sorted through and gotten rid of the ones he didn’t care about or use anymore.
I googled “guitar pick art” and saw lots of people have done this. Many people do their guitar pick art with lots of careful symmetry and arrangement, but I didn’t want to set myself up for disaster. I thought we’d freestyle.
Back in college we ripped up a calendar of vintage travel reproductions and framed/hung them. Most of these pictures are still hung around our house, even though they’re not all awesome. I took one of the less awesome pictures down and flipped the calendar page over: that’s what we used as our frame and canvas.
I sorted through the picks and pulled out the prettiest and most interesting ones so we could be sure to use those. To adhere them, I used the little adhesive dots I’d bought for my doomed silhouette project back in May. These were the perfect size and I loved that it wouldn’t be messy like glue.
I showed the girls the ropes. They picked a pick, and I put the dots on the picks and pulled off the paper. They were in charge of sticking. It took less than 10 minutes.
I encouraged them to fill in gaps and spread the colors around so it wasn’t a big clump of red picks (the favorites) in one corner only. That’s about as far as my editorial commentary went.
Aren’t picks pretty?? I love the star and the little rhino. Pearl, metal, tortoiseshell: they really are very textural.
I think if I was doing this just as a grown up, I would use a slightly smaller frame — maybe 5×7? — and crowd them a little more so there was less white space. But whatever: it was the perfect Father’s Day gift and cost $0.
We didn’t bother to wrap it!
And again, in their final hanging spot, by our piano that no one knows how to play (yet):
