Hola! Ciao! I can't think of any other greetings, even though I am a self-professed lover of languages.

I guess, as a first post, I should explain a mission statement. According to my brother, "blogs are for ranting." Instead of boring my (miniscule) audience, though, I want to give pointers. Based on my own experiences and triumphs, I will write about my efforts to be cheap and resourceful. Although I take a lot of heat from my friends, I generally save a lot more money. These efforts have almost always worked out very well for me in the past.



In June, I splurged on a beautiful Martin guitar. I love music and I've always wanted to be at least proficient in guitar. I felt that I could only be an authentic lover of folk music if I knew how to play James Taylor, Nickel Creek, and Joni Mitchell. Guitar is going well enough, but I recently realized that it would be much more comfortable if I had a guitar strap. Impeded by a lack of money and transportation, I got to thinking about making one. This was the beginning of my braided hemp guitar strap.



I've been using the strap for almost a month and I can't tell you how pleased I am with it. I had all of the materials in my dorm room so I saved about $20 bucks. Even better, it has character!



Hemp is a pretty strong material, and I think the strap should last me for a while. So, if you're looking for a quick fix for a broken guitar strap here's your first project:

• Make six braids of hemp twice as long as you would need a strap to comfortably support your guitar.


• If you want to embellish it a bit, put beads, buttons, bells, etc. on the hemp as you braid. As you can see, I wanted to embellish it a bit.

• Then, tie all of the braids onto one. This one will serve as the anchor.


• Make sure all of the braids match up length-wise.


• Now, pick up all of the braids from the middle.


• You can tie this between the neck and the guitar strings, or you can pull the middle, as a loop, between the neck and strings.

• Proceed to pull the ends of the strings through the loop that you've just made (compare this to looping a scarf on a pole or around your neck-you take the long scarf, double it over and put it around your neck. Then you pull the ends through the loop to make it tight).


• Make sure that the hemp is pulled tight so it won't obstruct the sound.


• Finally, tie all braids to the anchor braid and tie the anchor braid tightly around the plug in for the amp!

You're on your way to being frugal! The hemp should cost you about $3 and you definitely won't use the entire spool. That's a pretty good deal when you could be spending $10-20 on a cool artsy looking guitar strap. Instead, you just made your own!