For the school term starting in January, I decided to use Fairies as the theme for our projects in my after school class: Craft Market. It’s been a while since I have used a theme in class but thought it was time to do it again to encourage enrollment.
When using a theme for this class, I always follow the same guidelines as non theme classes: one or two cooking classes, a bath and body creation class, one or two paper crafting classes, a sewing class (which is usually our long term project cos it takes several classes), jewelry design class and then I always throw in a coupla other fun projects along the way.
With the fairy theme and with it being the spring term, I decided to use flowers as inspiration. So a lot of our projects will will involve flowers or plants.
One of those projects is a flower pencil. I like this project because it is fairly easy to do and they end up with a finished project that they can actually use. Please check out the DIY below.
Supplies: faux flower petals (I got mine from a 99 cent store), fine glitter, pencil, 1 inch Pom Pom (I got mine from Michaels), hot glue, school glue (I used some left over that was diluted with water: 1 part glue to 1 part water), paint brush, metal clippers and flat nosed pliers (that is if you are using a pencil with an attached eraser), painters tape, hot glue
Attach a bit of the painters tape to the bottom of the Pom Pom and secure it on a paper plate or scrap piece of paper. Then paint the top and sides with the glue mixture.
Sprinkle the wet pom pom with glitter making sure that the glitter gets on the sides of the Pom Pom.
Set Pom Pom aside to dry.
If using pencils that do not have an attached eraser, skip the next coupla steps. If the pencil has an attached eraser, gently pull it out using a twisting motion.
Use the metal clippers to snip the metal eraser holder.
Use the flat nosed plier to peel the eraser holder away from the pencil.
Next, close to the top edge of the pencil apply a dab of hot glue.
Quickly place a petal so that the pointy side is pointing towards the bottom of the pencil, the side that you write with. Carefully pressed the petal down into the glue as it may still be hot.
Apply the next petal. I find it easier to apply the second petal about 180 degrees from the first one. Or you can look at it this way: most pencils have six sides. Initially attach the petals to the flat sides so the first petal goes on the first side and the second goes on the fourth side. And the rest of the petals can be attached alternating between the sides.
The flower still in progress.
You may need to add a little extra glue to the sides of the outer petals so that they lay flat against each other.
Flower pencil all ready for the final step.
Add a dab of hot glue to the top edge of the pencil.
Place the gold glitter Pom Pom on top of the glue.
And voila: the flower is all done