Tutorial – Vintage Book Pen Pot

I’ve used various ways of storing my pens over the years, and lately they’ve been haphazardly thrown together in a jar and a square cardboard pot, which took up a lot of space on my desk and made it quite hard to find the pen I was looking for:

But now they are neatly organised in this much more becoming Vintage Book Pen Pot:

In case you’d like one too, here’s how to make it:

What you need:

Vintage Ladybird Book
Piece of Chipboard
Hot Glue Gun
Co-ordinating Acrylic Paint
Craft Knife
Cutting Mat, Steel Ruler, Paintbrush, Pencil and Eraser (not pictured)

Step 1: Cut the covers off the book using a craft knife and a steel ruler (be careful!):

 

Step 2: Cut one piece of chipboard to 2″ x 6¾”, and four small pieces of chipboard to 2″ x 3¾” :

Step 3: Paint the chipboard pieces:

Step 4: Lay a book cover down on a heat proof mat, with the endpapers facing up. Run a line of hot glue along the long bottom edge, and press the longer piece of chipboard into it, holding it for a few seconds while it sets:

Step 5: Run a line of hot glue along one edge of the yellow base, and going up 3¾” of the edge of the book cover too. Stick one of the smaller pieces of chipboard to it while it’s still hot (you’ll need to move quickly), and again hold for a few seconds while it sets:

Steps 6, 7, and 8: Repeat with the remaining small chipboard pieces, spacing them out a little:

Step 9: Lay the other book cover down with the endpapers facing up, and mark where the hot glue needs to go:

Step 10: Run hot glue along the lines, very quickly, and press the chipboard pieces on the other cover down onto the glue. If you’re worried you can’t do it quick enough (before the glue cools) then you could use a slower drying super-glue.

Then fill your pen pot up! I have pencils, biros, and tools on the left, coloured pens in the middle, and black pens on the right. It makes it so much easier to see which pen I need straight away and because the pen pot is narrower than the usual round-style pot, it means it takes up less space on my desk – hooray!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the tutorial! If you’d like to make one of your own, then here’s a giveaway to get you started! Let me know in the comments below if you’d like to be in the draw to win this:

A Vintage Ladybird Book and some chipboard!

I’m sorry I can’t give you all the other things neccesary to make it, hopefully the winner will have some suitable bits already!

This giveaway is open internationally, and will close at 11.59pm (BST) Monday 2nd July. The winner will be announced on Thursday 5th July. Please make sure that you tell me how to contact you if you win, if you’re not easily reached via a google account.

Don’t forget that a comment on this post, or on any of my posts from this weekend, will count as an entry into the Grand Giveaway {NOW CLOSED}– but only if you’ve registered your interest in winning that here!

Thanks for reading, see you in an hour! x