Decorating your home can be an expensive adventure; just leafing through any random home decor catalog and making a wish list is enough to give me a chronic case of sticker shock. This is even more true if you plan to decorate based on a specific theme. If you’re crafty, though, chances are you’d rather spend time than money and create your own custom decor! Over at our Facebook fan page, DSC reader Jennifer C. is looking for a few ideas. She writes:
Hi! I was wondering if any of my fellow crafters had ideas for thrifty guitar decor. We want to give our living room a bluesy vibe! Thank you!
One thing that came to my mind is using sheet music to decoupage a furniture piece, as the matting on photos, or as the background for a piece of collage artwork. You could also make large-scale wall art by cutting a guitar (or guitar-ish) shape out of a sheet of plywood and adding a little paint to complete the effect.
It’s brainstorm time! Hit us with your best musical decor ideas!
[Image by darrenhester @ morguefile.com]
11 Comments
Off The Cuff Cooking
In the vein of cutting out a plywood guitar, you could also abstract that some more, and use masking tape and paint to block out the guitar frets in large scale across the back of a wall — if you wanted a subtle effect, you could do the paint treatment in two tints of the same color chip, or do a bold color scheme.
You could also make photo copies in sharp contrast of your favorite musicians and have them blown up into funky, modern art– cut them into 4 quadrants and put them into frames that are hung into a square to make a complete image — or cheaper still, just have a photo place like CostCo, print them up and mount them to foam-core and you can cheaply and easily hang them up on the wall w/o frames or even hardware, since you could use double-stick foam pads to stick them to the wall.
Old vintage record sleeves are also fantastic art for a music/blues/guitar themed room. Find some old cool ones at a second-hand store, and either put them up with shiny chrome thumb-tacks on each corner, or make a fun collage of them by cutting out your favorite images. (Obviously, check Ebay first, to make sure you’re not cutting up some limited edition rare out of print record that fetches thousands of dollars at auction!) Finding the right album art might also help choose a color scheme for painting walls or adding accent colors through stuff like inexpensive lamp shades, or throw pillows.
Good luck~!
Panya
Album cover box [look familiar? ;-)]: https://dollarstorecrafts.com/2011/05/make-a-record-album-cover-box/
[Maybe photocopy some favorites & glue to heavy paperboard for the same effect if destruction is undesirable. Same sort of technique could be used to make a lampshade.]
Vinyl record guitar holder: http://rootsandwingsco.blogspot.com/2011/04/rock-and-roll-home-decor-vinyl-record.html
Vinyl record bowl: http://www.homemademamas.net/2010/04/revamp-your-vinyl.html
[I made some of these years ago as gifts, super easy & cool. My gramma’s maiden name is the same as a famous conductor & I happened to find one the albums from his symphony at the thrift store when I was searching for the project — find of the year, for sure!]
Caitlyn
I’ve always thought guitar strings were really cool looking, but I guess working with them (wrapping the base of a lamp, maybe?) would get kinda pricey. Still, if you’ve got guitars that could use new strings, save the old ones!
a mobile or chandelier out of guitar picks (or just pick shapes, cut out of paper) might work
Chelsea
Print out pictures of Preservation Hall, House of Blues, etc. and famous artists for wall art. There are tons of online projects you can use from enlarging the picture to create a Warhol-esque mural to more expensive projects like the ones on walmart.com or any other photo site.
Obviously, if you already have guitars, hang them on the wall as decoration! My husband has this awesome blue guitar and I make sure it’s always visible. :)
As a side note to the guitar pick chandelier idea – the pearlized ones look like capiz shells! Hint, hint.
Hunt for old audio equipment/musical equipment at flea markets/garage sales/thrift stores. You can turn them into lamps, paperweights, or conversation pieces.
I suddenly had an idea to turn amps or speakers into side tables. I googled it, and I don’t think anyone has done it. You should.
If you have basic sewing skills, you can sew or embroider musical themes onto pillows/blankets/curtains/whatever. I think window screens embroidered as sheet music or pillows in the shape of guitars or pics would be cute.
Any of the DIY record projects!
Have fun! Sounds like your space has lots of potential. :)
Heather D
You could make a shadow-box display thingie of interesting guitar picks. I bet they could be found on Etsy cheap!
Tee
If you get the shape of a guitar cut out of plywood, you could make a clock. Buy a cheap clock at a thrift store or yard sale to use for parts. If you have a damaged guital around, use that for your clock base.
I like Rhonda’s idea of decoupaging a piece of furniture with sheet music.
If you have (or a friend has) some type of cutting machine like Cricut, you could get notes cut out of vinyl. Draw music lines on your wall (or sheet of plywood), add notes.
Not sure why but a lava lamp comes to mind, lol.
Tee
After I posted here I ran across this tut. http://katiesrosecottage.blogspot.com/2011/07/hymnal-music-bannet-tutorial.html
If you don’t want to mar your walls, this would work great. use whatever word you want.
Katie
@Chelsea
On your note regarding amps as side tables: My husband is a touring musician, and we live in a pretty small house. When he goes on the road, I have to find new places to put my remotes and lamps, because both my side tables go with him! For us, it’s more out of necessity, since they’re huge beasts to store otherwise, but I’ll admit, they do look pretty cool.
One recommendation, if you’re looking to use them just as tables, have the insides removed first, that’s the heavy part.
Other than that, we have a music stand with sheet music in the corner, two guitars, a bass, and my violin hang on the wall and we have a seven foot tall upright bass in the corner. Our bookcase has an old vinyl record bowl that I made years ago with spare music cables and mics in it, and two vintage guitar pedals that I think just look really cool, even if they don’t work.
Jeanine
Saw these guitar hooks at Bed, Bath and Beyond – perfect for a guitar themed room! They’re 3 for $20 here in Canada, but I’m pretty sure you could replicate them for a reasonable price, depending on what you had on hand.
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?SKU=16554880&RN=989
Chelsea
@Katie –
I stand corrected! Someone has done it, they just haven’t put it online. :)
Very cool!
I can see gutting the amps, painting the screens and body contrasting colors (royal blue and a deep pink come to mind,) and putting a piece of glass over one or two to make end tables or coffee tables.
daisy
It’s funny that you mention sheet music! One of my childhood neighbors’ parents were musicians and they used sheet music as wallpaper–it’s really striking as an accent wall!