I was recently inspired by a student’s art piece that utilized old scratched records to make flowers. I began to wonder, what else can you make from old records.

How about a fish? With Father’s Day approaching and the children’s dad being a fly fisherman – that could be fun. We decided on a trout.

Step One.

Determine the finished size. A trout is a long fish. In order to get the right look utilizing LPs, the fish became 4 feet by 12 feet (two pieces of plywood).

Step Two.

Paint the plywood with exterior paint. We also polyurethaned the record labels in an effort to weatherize them.

Step Three.

Plan how the records would be arranged. I created a digital template with the placement of the records and had it printed full size.

Step Four.

Using the template, we marked where each record would be placed and then screwed them into the board.

Step Five.

Once all the records were in place, we painted the details: head, tail, fins, and of course a fly.

The kids had a great time putting it together and we have a unique backdrop to our garden pond. It was also fun sharing with my 4 year old daughter “what is a record?”

We spent 3-9 cents a piece for scratched records from Hastings Used Books.