Clearing up my son’s room last week we found an old toy guitar that was well passed repair. It used to be a cute mini acoustic guitar with real chords that you could actually play, but sadly now 2 chords are missing and it looks like it has just survived a stampede alive but without hope for complete recovery.  The memory of its former glory inspired us to make a guitar out of cardboard, a shoebox and some elastic bands.

We began by cutting a guitar shape out of thick cardboard and with a masking tape roll we traced a circle in the middle. We cut the circle out and punched six holes by its sides; then we cut 6 elastic bands and fed them through the holes. We secured the elastic bands by tying a knot on both ends making them tight enough to resemble guitar chords. We then attached a shoebox on one side of the round gap with masking tape to allow the elastic bands to make a sound. To finish the look we attached a long strip of cardboard to make the guitar’s neck.

The finished job is not very durable as it stands, but with a few layers of paper mache, paint and fine details it could be a lovely bedroom decoration.