Guitar Strings Upcycled!

I actually have some new things to  share with everyone today.  It's not actually anything that I've made recently because I've been a bit distracted by other things, but it's stuff I haven't posted here or listed in my etsy store, so it's like it's new.

I have been hoarding J's used guitar strings for a while now.  Every time he changed his strings, I hid the old ones away.  I've always wanted to do something with them, I've just never have.  Well, that's all changed. 

I made myself a bangle out of them last summer.  Just a simple bangle with some left over beads strung on the strings.  Then I just did some simple wire wrapping to hold it all together.  It seemed to work and I really liked it.  I still wear it all the time.  I made a few changes to how it was made (like soldering all the strings together), but over all I like the idea, so I made a few more.

I have three guitar string bracelets made right now.  A pink one, a green one, and a red one.  These are great because they reuse J's old strings that he would probably just throw away and they use up my stashes of left over beads. You know the ones that you only have a tiny bit left so you can't really use it for another project except maybe a bead soap project.  Well now instead of throwing those beads in the big bin of left overs, I can use them for these.  Perfect.

Each bracelet is made using all the different sizes of strings he has.  So there are little ones and bigger ones in each bracelet.  The beads are free to move around the bracelet, which I think makes it fun.  I left the ends of the strings on because I find them visually interesting.  Then soldered all the wire together, which is easier then it sounds.  Guitar wires don't really like to stay all wrapped in circle, they want to spring open and be free.  To hide the solder, I added some wire wrapping.  I kept it simple because my wire wrapping skills are pretty sad.

You can check them out in my etsy store.  Click HERE for the link to my red and yellow bangle.  

As much as I love these bracelets, I've been playing around with some other ideas as well.  I have some smaller sections of the strings left when I make the bangles, and I didn't really want to throw those away.  They were perfectly good art materials, they just needed a purpose.  So I made myself a simple little pendent.

Again I used a left over bead I had sitting around, I love putting those extra beads to use.  Just wrapped the wire in two ovals and soldered the top to hold them in place.  I again added some wire wrapping to hide the solder as well as add a loop to attach it to necklace.  I put the pendent on cotton cord that I made adjustable by adding a small glass crow bead to the back.

I love this necklace.  I wear it all the time.  It's really simple but really stylish at the same time.  I've gotten a ton of comments on it when I wear it.   I haven't made any more like this.  I'm just testing the waters with the strings.  If I get good feedback on this one, I might have to start making some more.

And I have added to my collection of strings since last summer when I started working on this project.  Since then I have added bass guitar strings, which I hope make more masculine jewelry with (J's suggestion) and some cello strings, which are so beautiful, I can't wait to start working with them (they have silk on them).  So stay tuned for some more guitar strings jewelry as well as other guitar and music themed items.