It seems that I almost always learn something new when I stop in St. Louis.
Today I learned that you can make some great guitar picks from old cards, like hotel room keys, old credit cards, and various rewards cards. I can't even remember how many of these I have just thrown out in my time!
We spent the night with some friends in St. Louis who have a wonderful talented family. Our time here is often filled with excellent conversation, and music. This time I happened to notice that some of their guitar picks had various hotel or grocery story logos on them. At first I thought that maybe they were hand-cut, but they all seemed so uniform. I asked, and they were more than happy to show me how they do it, so I'll take the opportunity to show you.
As it turns out, their "secret weapon" is a pick punch. I just looked and it looks like they retail for about $25 online at their website. Once someone has the tool, the process is very simple.
The tool itself looks similar to a stapler, and uses the same amazing technology as a hole punch... but this hole just happens to be shaped like a guitar pick and the tool is strong enough to cut through hard plastic.
When you find the card you want to use, in this case an old hotel card...
You line it up in the tool.
Once it is lined up, you squeeze.
Suddenly, a guitar pick shaped piece of plastic jumps out.
And there you have it!
The tool even has some sand paper attached to the bottom of it so you can smooth any rough or sharp edges.
If you have a whole pile of old plastic cards....
You can quickly make a handful of guitar picks.
One of their sons even showed me that if you do it properly, you can even get 6 guitar picks out of just one card!
The only thing left for me to do is to learn how to play guitar!
As always, I'm 
and here's the proof:
proof-of-pick-punch
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