BENGALURU: Nothing beats the challenge of keeping a kid engaged. You may spend a few hundreds on the best toy in town, only to find that your child moved on to some other toy in a few hours. A homemade musical instrument similar to a ‘damroo’ can be made in hardly any time, with simple supplies. Let your child take to it for a while. You will not cry over an expensive toy that got dumped.
A lot of spool gets left behind quite often at parties, do not throw them away. Here’s a tutorial on how you can use it to make music.
Materials:
a ribbon spool, patterned colour sheets, paper punch,scissors, hot glue gun, pen, pencil, decorative ribbon to embellish, thick yarn enough to pass through a big bead, beads , sanding paper is optional.
Method:
Trace out circles with the spool’s base on the rear of the patterned colour sheet and cut two circles
Punch a hole on one rim of the spool, and on the corresponding rim across. The hole needs to be punched with about two millimetre distance from the edge of the rim, so that it is easy to knot a thread and so that it stays strong.
Glue the cut circles on to the outward facing surfaces. But before gluing, peel out the glossy layer. This is to let the glue sit better on it.
Cover the two ends with these circles. Use the punched hole to guide through and poke a hole using the marker, a toothpick or a sharp pencil. Keep this aside.
Knot the end of the yarn and run a smaller bead. Add a bigger bead to this and using your index finger to hold, knot the thread where the bead ends.
Cut the yarn enough to knot it to the punched hole. Make sure the length of the beaded yarn was is enough for it to flap and hit on the spool ends.
Cut excess yarn that may be hanging. Do this on the other end too. The beaded drum or ‘damroo’ is ready. Get your child to play it into a rhythm.
(http://www.imprintshandmade.com)