Cardboard guitar tutorial
My 5-year-old really wanted to make a guitar with elastic bands, so after a Google search, a quick sketch and a rummage through the recycling we came up with this cardboard design.
Supplies:
- Card- Cardboard
- Box
- Kitchen roll tube
- 6 Elastic bands
- Cutter/craft knife
- Strong glue
- Felt tips
- Pencils
- Round object to use as stencil
WHAT TO DO (AND WHAT NOT TO DO)
1. Cut guitar body out of cardboard using a cutter/craft knife.2. Use this as stencil to also cut the body out of card.
3. Colour in the card.
4. Cut out a circle in the centre of the cardboard. Keep the cutout.
5. Stick the card on top of the cardboard.
6. Where the card covers the hole, cut 4 lines (a cross and then an X all intersecting, much like the British flag). This will give you 8 triangles to fold behind the cardboard and stick.
7. Carve 6 lines at the top and bottom of the body. Slot in elastic bands. Then, possibly panic as the cardboard folds under the tension of the elastic bands. To avoid the mini disaster below, carve the bottom lines quite high, depending on the length of the elastic bands, otherwise they will be too tight!
8. You could pull each band tighter than the next at the front to resemble the variation in the chords (well, sort of!).
8. Place the cardboard body on the backing box, without sticking it, and roughly mark where the hole will go. Using the circle cutout from the cardboard, cut a circle into the front of the box.
9. Stick the guitar body to the box, using strong glue and heavy books to make sure the glue sticks well. I was quite convinced it was the end of the project by this stage given the folding problem and prepared my son for a lesson in real life. However, I left the glue to set for a few hours, and to my surprise, project toy guitar was back on again!
10. Stick the kitchen roll tube to the box with masking tape.
11. My husband, who plays a real guitar, added a pencil each at the dotted lines below, which gave it a more realistic sound.
12. Breathe a sigh of relief that the makeshift guitar craft actually works.
13.Watch as kids play and destroy it. They still play with it in this state, mind!
Seeing this raving success, my three-year-old now insists she needs a guitar too!
(If anyone attempts this tutorial and ends up with a spare, please get in touch.)