DIY Tambourine

Here's a quick, fun craft project to make a homemade tambourine in about 1-2 hours.

• Embroidery hoops (2)
• Fabric or leather/suede
• Bottle caps
• Popsicle sticks

Tools needed:

• Scissors
• Wire cutters
• Ruler
• Hole punch
• Hot glue

You will have to open up the embroidery hoop and fit the piece of fabric or leather in it. Unscrew the hoop. Lay the center ring on a table, press the fabric on it (you choose which side will be up), then put the outer ring on top and use the screw to tighten it. Make sure it's firm, but don't tighten the screw so much that the wood breaks. Once it's secure cut some of the excess fabric hanging out to clean it up. Do this for the top and bottom. I also glued the fabric to the wooden hoop on the underside so it wouldn't slip out.

Cut some popsicle sticks in half and hot glue them to the rings to create a solid structure, as in the pictures. To space them evenly around the outside, figure out what the diameter is, then multiply that by π (3.14) to figure out the circumference. For mine, the diameter was 8", so my circumference is 25.13". I have 10 posts, so I spaced mine evenly every 2.25" from one another (after subtracting the width of the stick, .25" from 2.5").

Use two or more bottle caps to act as agitators. Punch a hole in the center (a 3-hole paper punch works great). (If you have something else like jingle bells, that would work as well.) You'll need to find something to use as posts for the bottle caps. Cutting up a wire clothes hanger with wire cutters is perfect. Then put the posts through the center of your bottle caps. You'll attach the agitators to the rings between the popsicle sticks.

Hot glue the various parts together.

Give it to the kids to enjoy!