2/12/2008

dragonflies love flowers

This idea idea will be part of a Mother's Day class of mine in April. This idea of a pen with a faux silk flower was inspired from the book Pretty Little Things by Sally Jean Alexander. I adapted her idea to suit clear plastic tubing from Home Depot or any similar store. The size tubing I used, located in the plumbing department, is 3/8" x 1/4". This measurement means the outside of the tubing is 3/8" in diameter and the inside is 1/4". The bundle of tubing was 10 feet total for around $5. I cut the tubing to 5-1/2" - just long enough for a nice, graceful pen. This size tubing allows a Bic stick pen to fit perfectly - nice and snug - into the tube! The beauty of this is, if you are in love with your pen when the ink dries up you can remove the old ink barrel and insert a new one! :) Here's my steps: After cutting the tubing I stamped the adorable Lockhart dragonfly randomly onto white paper - roughly 1-1/4" x 5-1/2". The paper I used was the white backing of a printed decorative paper - not cardstock. Cardstock is too thick and too heavy to curl nicely into a tiny tube. I colored in the little dragonflies with markers, then rolled up the stamped paper nice and tight around a skinny dowel (you could try a paintbrush too) and inserted it into the plastic tubing. Using wirecutters I removed the ink barrel and nib from a Bic Stick pen, and inserted the barrel & nib into the plastic tubing. No need to glue - the fit is perfect. The nib will push a bit of the stamped paper out the opposite end of the tubing. Trim paper flush with tubing using scissors. Next I put a dollop of E-6000 adhesive (you could use any strong industrial cement/adhesive) into the opposite tube opening and inserted a faux flower with stem trimmed to about 1/2". Allow to dry, then stamp the flower petals and add vintage silver glass glitter. Again, the idea for dressing up the petals is from Sally Jean Alexander. I am going to try varying the length - making my next pens longer or shorter, or use plain text weight (think computer printer paper weight) patterned paper like the rose pen below! Thank you for stopping by!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy plumbing creations! cindy, this just blows me away! Thanks for the great idea - and the great instructions!

Donna Baker said...

what a fantastic idea...you sure are FULL of them, aren't you? thanks for sharing

Linda Carson said...

Love this project! thanks for the tutorial!

Bevie Pearl said...

Only you would come up with this idea. Genius!!!

Anonymous said...

so pretty, these would be great gifts!

Beth said...

WOW! That is amazing!