by Margaret “Peg” Venable
The holidays are fast approaching and my thoughts have turned to decorating everything in sight and that includes ukuleles.
Some will get flowers, while others will just get a good cleaning and a pretty bow! I can’t get my original decoration endeavors out of my mind…stickers!
That’s right, my first ukulele, my Paisen, needed some beautification.
To start this project, I decided to add hummingbird stickers on fret markers. I searched for stickers that I liked and could afford on Amazon.
Once the stickers arrived, I cleaned my fretboard with a cleaning cloth and picked out my favourites for each fretmarker, taking into consideration size, once positioned.
Ideally, applying stickers, or any “on the body’ ukulele decoration is best done with the strings removed; however I chose to struggle with getting the stickers in the correct places by going under the strings. I felt like a contortionist. My favorite tool became long necked tweezers just to get more room for sticker decorating. This was really exhausting!
I also needed time to see how well these stickers would adhere to the uke. I am very happy to report that they haven’t budged a bit.
Seeing my pretty hummingbird embellishments on my ukulele adds to the enjoyment playing the ukulele brings. It’s still a work in progress and I haven’t decided whether I want more birds or flowers on the ukulele, so for now I’m enjoying the first stage of my creative Uke beauty!
Note: If you’re thinking about the number of stickers you may need, it should take about 11 small stickers for the fret markers and the side of the neck for identifying the 5th, 7th, 10th, and 15th frets. The rest is up to you.
Have fun!
