VHS tapes are obsolete, yet I have plenty of them. I donated the various titles to others, but what do I do with the multitude of tapes filled with home movies? Once they've been converted to DVD or digital files, there's really no reason to let them hang around. It doesn't feel right to toss them in the garbage. After sitting on a shelf in my studio for a few months, I finally took them apart. The plastic casing was saved for another time. I threw the spools of ribbon into a basket and promptly forgot about them.
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| Spools of VHS ribbon |
Let's talk about this ribbon for a sec. There's two spools in each tape. It's super thin and easily broken if pulled too hard. It squeaks and crinkles when worked with. There's plenty of examples of artists creating portraits out of VHS ribbon, but I do not have the patience for that. Kudos to those artists who do. You can find 'em on Pinterest, no worries.
Awhile back, I had crocheted a bag out of plastic yarn (or plarn, as the pinners would call it) that worked out really well, so I thought, VHS ribbon would work, too. Two spools and several days later I have a fairly large and surprisingly sturdy bag. It was easy to work with but very noisy. The TV was louder than usual and complaints from the family drove me into another room to work. I am still left with over ten spools of ribbon. There is A LOT of ribbon on each spool, it's never ending, I swear.
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| A crocheted ribbon shoulder bag |
I got it into my head that I should build a guitar. Not a real one (not yet) but one that could hang out on a wall or something. In a previous post I had created a mosaic out of my daughter's old (and broken!) 3/4 guitar, which was met with some mild resistance, so this time, I'll just build one and keep everybody happy. I used VHS ribbon to connect pieces of wire hanger to create a frame for the guitar. This held together pretty well. The ribbon broke easily if pulled to hard when knotting, resulting in frequent swearing, but it held.
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| Using ribbon to build a guitar body. |
I ended up with a beautiful guitar created top to bottom from materials found in the studio! It's available in my Etsy shop, https://www.etsy.com/listing/168953674/fairy-house-guitar-music-house-2013?ref=shop_home_active_20.
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| The finished guitar! |
My current project involving VHS ribbon is another guitar. I'm trying to use up as much scrap paper as possible here, and I think I may achieve that goal! I created a guitar body shape using wire hangers (8 or 9, I think), and wrapping the hangers with ribbon. The center of the guitar will be filled with rolled scrap paper. I will build a neck and head the same way, and use old guitar strings to finish it off.
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| Ribbon wrapped hangers create a guitar shape. |
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| Close up of the frame. |
Look for update pictures of this guitar and other projects on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/watercoloredwindows!
