hippie-picks

I love the creation of genuinely useful things, particularly from the organic reuse of things that we are surrounded with and often throw away. It has become a theme of my apartment to hold on to things that we can find re-use, particularly containers etc. As I attempted to shuffle through the borderline hoard of my bedroom I was looking at the pile of room-keys that I was left with after a summer adventure. One thing that I have always used cards for when in a pinch is as guitar picks. Wielding the whole card can work, but is generally not ideal, and can render useful cards defiled and useless. For all those expired credit cards and room-keys you may need to dispose of, here's a way to save $5 on a bag of picks and end up with an expression to express with on your stringed instrument.


the basic materials.


use a working sharpie or pen to scribble out something that looks like a pick. Get funky and make something asymmetrical or with different picking edges for fast or precise picking too.


Put that 2nd Grade scissor business to use!


use a dry erase to clean off any unwanted sharpie.


a bit of half dead sandpaper, a piece of leftover griptape, or even your skateboard and you can smooth out those sharp edges and make a nice round profile for your pick


adding some relief to the edges to smooth playing...


reducing the overall thickness of the playing edge to whatever suits your playing style...


this is about what I came out with. You could reduce the grit of your paper and get a more smooth, polished finish if you so desire.


Carefully using a hobby knife, you can add texture by scoring the card. The classic cross-hatch yields excellent grip, but you can take more artistic approaches as well.


this is your canvas, so get creative.


mess with shapes, add holes, whatever. I am sure there are many great ways to do this, and that I am not the first person to do it, but this is what I figured out and its a great way to re-use something that could just as easily end up being burnt in some incinerator for your kids to breathe.