avert your eyes, cratediggers

December 2, 2008 9:10 AM

Feeling the crunch? Need to get a bunch of gifts for people on the cheap? Why not go down to a thrift store, pick up some old vinyl and make a bowl*, a candle holder (suitable for advent), or a cuff bracelet? If you have more to spend and are more adept in the craft department, try a record purse or a deconstructed album book.

*If you have a square thing to mold the record on, the records can become nifty boxe, suitable for pens and pencils.

posted by piratebowling (26 comments total)

From the first link: He found directions on how to melt old records and by the time I came home a copy of Sheena Easton, Eurythmics and Village People had been turned into objets d’art.

Village People recordings are already objets d'art.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:24 AM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Because it's unthinkable that anyone would buy records for the purpose of listening to them anymore?
posted by anazgnos at 9:25 AM on December 2, 2008

Because it's unthinkable that anyone would buy records for the purpose of listening to them anymore?

If that is all you have gotten out of this post, I have failed and I apologize profusely.
posted by piratebowling at 9:33 AM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yeah, as someone who spends a lot of time trawling charity shops and jumble sales for records, the idea that some crafty git might beat me to a record I've been looking for for years and then melt it into a crappy-looking candle holder makes me sick to the stomach.
posted by jack_mo at 9:35 AM on December 2, 2008

Heh, I just noticed the title of the post.
posted by jack_mo at 9:35 AM on December 2, 2008

Set the vinyl candleholder in the middle of your holiday centerpiece, let the candles burn low, and watch the fun as your dining room table becomes engulfed in flames. Look, kids! here comes Santa on the firetruck! See the pretty lights?
posted by kuujjuarapik at 9:49 AM on December 2, 2008

Another great post, orange swan.

Wait, what...
posted by lekvar at 9:50 AM on December 2, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

Anyone want to buy a few hundred record collection? I just inherited it and i'm too lazy to ebay or craigslist it.
posted by JonnyRotten at 9:50 AM on December 2, 2008

whoa whoa whoa, angry folks.

I've worked at a few second hand stores, including some huge Salvation Army stores, and there are more incoming shitty records than space to keep them. Most of these will eventually be discarded. Isn't it much better someone use these records for something constructive, rather than leaving them to rot in their mildewed cases on a shelf until they finally get chucked? Certainly, there's a tiny percentage of good records that will be sacrificed, but I promise you it will be mostly crap.

Incidentally, I'm a huge music fan and dig vinyl. I'm also a huge literature-nerd and I've fueled more than one bonfire with useless (and I mean 1970s micro-wave cookery useless) books. Not every piece of media produced is worth saving. A lot of it wasn't worth producing! If it can be put to good use rather than just eventually end up in a landfill, I say that's great.
posted by es_de_bah at 9:54 AM on December 2, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

Certainly, there's a tiny percentage of good records that will be sacrificed, but I promise you it will be mostly crap.

This is why it's so upsetting - the fun of buying records is spending hours looking at absolute shite, then finding something glorious. Sods law dictates that the craftsperson inspired by this post would unthinkingly pick up the one great record in amongst the thousands of rubbish ones and put it in their oven.
posted by jack_mo at 10:07 AM on December 2, 2008

es_de_bah burns books!

just messin' :)
posted by inigo2 at 10:16 AM on December 2, 2008

I'd prefer to get nothing for Christmas than that crap.
posted by scarello at 10:17 AM on December 2, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

This whole post has taken a turn I did not expect, and I just want to make something perfectly clear about my intention: I'm only promoting the destruction of vinyl because I refuse to listen to anything but wax cylinder recordings.
posted by piratebowling at 10:24 AM on December 2, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

Coming soon, my how-to guide on melting down wax cylinders to make votif candles to put into your vinyl candle holder.
posted by JonnyRotten at 10:28 AM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I prefer melting the ephemeral images on daguerreotypes into nifty key chains and other hipster shit.
posted by ZaneJ. at 10:29 AM on December 2, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Some of the "vinyl is precious no matter what" talk here is reminding me of a comment thread on another site defending Reader's Digest condensed books. Is it really a crime to turn a scratched, unplayable copy of Sing Along With Mitch into a coaster?
posted by queensissy at 10:43 AM on December 2, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

"Oh, a candle holder."
posted by Zambrano at 12:14 PM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Isn't 'Sing Along With Mitch' one of those super-rare albums with the awful, awful cover that makes it onto all those 'worst covers' lists? I've been trying to track down any of those records without much luck.
Please, please don't melt down copies of Beck's Mellow Gold, Tool's Aenima, or The Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin. Just send those records right to me and I'll draw you a picture of a 7-legged spider. You know what? Just send me all the records you have/get anyways. I'll just hold on to them for you in case you ever get the urge to maybe melt it down into a necklace or something.
posted by Bageena at 12:31 PM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'd prefer to get nothing for Christmas than that crap.

Yeah, I'd rather that you'd just lie to me and tell me that you donated to charity in my name.
posted by fixedgear at 12:43 PM on December 2, 2008

Suddenly I'm thinking Shrinky-Dinks.

I loathed those things.
posted by droplet at 12:51 PM on December 2, 2008

Piratebowling: Orangeswan's sockpuppet?
posted by JimmyJames at 3:24 PM on December 2, 2008

Hey, these old vellum manuscript pages make great paper airplanes!

KIDDING.
-
posted by Ron Thanagar at 4:22 PM on December 2, 2008

-Village People recordings are already objets d'art.-

For a couple of early teenage years, my bedroom was a caravan behind my parent's place. It was a very cool arrangement whereby I could sneak out at night and not get caught (well, much) but the best part was I could play music LOUD. To this end I had a very old turntable and scavenged speakers that was the envy of my siblings.

When I was out, my sister used to sneak in - so I found out - and play her horrible disco records. She once made the mistake of leaving a Village People single on the turntable after she had finished listening to it. So I got out the lighter and modified her prized record. It turns out that the mushroom-shaped knobs on the sliding cabinets in caravans are just the right size and shape to mould 45rpm records, so I left four mega-bulges in her single and put it back on the turntable. I don't think she ever played a record out there again. I called it the "accidental ashtray".
posted by peacay at 4:40 PM on December 2, 2008

I've done bowls (used as planters, cuffs, and a record album purse before. The thing that turned out the nicest was probably my wedding reception guestbook made out of an old Elvis record. But my favorite, FAVORITE record album craft project is one that I didn't do myself: Queen Bee's Truckette Bag. I've had one for years and people continue to stop me on the street just to ask about it.

And sheesh, people! The only point of this stuff is to use up crappy old scratchy records you buy at garage sales. If it costs more than fifty cents, there's no point in using it, I say.
posted by web-goddess at 5:34 PM on December 2, 2008

My best piece was an album-sleeve CD shelf. Turns out that eyelet-punched, lanyard-laced, halved and stabilised album sleeves mounted into a four-square shelf looks nice and is the right dimensions to store CDs.

I also like my black lightning bolt earrings cut from vinyl. Some friends of mine were making twisted colored streamer-shaped earrings and sold a lot in LA.

I'm pretty burned out on hunting anymore, not enough colored LPs.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:41 PM on December 2, 2008

Damn, I just turned down a stack of about a hundred crappy records in horrible, unplayable condition last week. Now I'm going to have to go hit the thrift store across the street and see what happened to them.

A couple of years ago I was at the gift shop of the local science museum and they were selling these for about $50-60 each. They were also selling coasters made from the center labels of LPs. I almost bought some coasters for my brother, but they didn't have any good bands.

And I don't understand why vinyl collectors would be upset about this. I've been searching the used vinyl bins for years and know very well that 80% of the stuff there is either stuff no one wants to own or in such horrible condition that a collector isn't interested. I got most of my vinyl from used bins in the mid-90s when the hold-outs were ditching their LPs for cds. I haven't found anything good in years.
posted by threeturtles at 8:37 AM on December 3, 2008