You may remember my telling you about a magical story involving pencils here. For me, there's nothing better than a freshly sharpened pencil. The smell, the sound, the feel. And when pencils can be dressed up like these that I recently altered, all the better.
I started by stamping a long and narrow image onto paper ... that paper ... what's that paper called ... you know, the kind that you use when you're learning to write with two solid lines and the dotted line in the middle.
If you're stamping to alter a pencil, I recommend scouting images that are long and narrow, because anything that is too large will get lost in translation when working on such a skinny substrate like a pencil. Also when stamping on paper with lines or other patterns, be deliberate. Had I stamped the image so the lines were to look horizontal, the look would have been a lot different. When it comes to artistic minimalism, even the slightest rotations of lines like this make a large difference in the overall composition.
I then fed the paper into the Xyron with the adhesive cartridge. (If you don't have a Xyron, you could use a different adhesive of choice but the reason I like the Xyron is because it creates an even and smooth adhesion.
With some pretty ribbons, these altered pencils are ready to be stuffed into stockings, topped onto gift packages, or bundled and bagged as a gift. So fun, so easy.
Happy crafting. :)