Posted by Jim 2.0 | tagged: toys, reuse, digitize, tape, cassette, analog, mp3, music, kids

Like Joelle Irving, perhaps you've digitized all your old-school cassette tapes and are now storing your classic tunes as non-degradable MP3 files on your computer.

Maybe you've even done Mother Earth a favor and e-cycled that squeaky old doorstop of a cassette player instead of throwing it out.

But what about the cassettes themselves? The garage sale shoppers didn't want 'em ("C'mon lady, it's Meatloaf for 25 cents!") but you feel guilty chucking all that plastic in the landfill...and the big, frizzy hair on some of those 80s cassette covers is pretty fun to look at still...

Well, video-maker loup226 has come up with a fun, easy solution to the problem of all those miles of dusty, analog shelf-hoggers -- make a Jacob's Ladder. These simple folk toys date back to the Pilgrim days, but are still a lot of fun for kids to make and play with. (Seriously -- can you walk by one of these things without picking it up and trying it?)

You may notice that loup226 uses new cassettes in this video...so unless you're one of those OCD collector-types who leaves everything in the shrink-wrap, you might want to secure your old cassette cases closed with some cellophane tape first.