I’m keeping on today with ideas to use school supplies in your women’s ministry and take advantage of those Back to School sales.  Today’s item is ink pens.  Of course we need those in our ladies meetings all year long for ice-breakers, games, filling out forms, Bible study, and all kinds of things.  Even though your ladies may each have a pen in their purse it is always better to have a supply on hand so you make sure everyone has a pen if needed.  Also cuts down on your meeting time so everyone isn’t digging through their purses.

I like to keep mine in little baskets or pretty little tins on the tables.  If you have a container for them, you are likely to get more of them back at the end of your ladies meeting.

I’m sharing today some altered ink pens.  These are done with R.S.V.P. pens by Pentel.  To make these a little prettier or to personalize them, you just need to insert paper into the barrel of the pen.

Directions:

• First take the pen apart by unscrewing the end from the clear exterior and take out the ink tube.
• Cut scrapbook paper to 3 1/2 x 1 inch. (thinner paper works better)
• Roll the paper around a bamboo skewer or a small knitting needle so it gets curled tightly into shape.
• Place the paper into the barrel and replace the ink tube.

For my personalized one I printed my website name and url out several times on one page.  Then I placed a 3 1/2 x 1 inch piece of paper under the writing and held it to the light, centred it, and marked it to cut it the right size to fit.  You may have a better way but that’s how I ended up doing it.  For women’s ministry you could put your women’s ministry web address or your women’s ministry name if you have one and the time you meet such as “Monthly – Mondays at 7 pm”.  You can’t fit too much wording on them as you don’t have much space to work with.

Tip:  If you get easily frustrated or don’t have any patience – don’t do this project!  The first few are aggravating until you get the hang of it.   Before you decide on doing a lot of these, try just a couple first.  This may not be the project for you as it does take a little bit of patience to get that paper rolled tight enough and pressed into the tube correctly.

Here’s a few samples of these altered pen projects.

• Altered Pen and Notebook (Splitcoast Stampers)
• Acrylic Frame and Pen Post It Holder (Dawn’s Stamping Studio)
• Altered Legal Pad and Pen (Stampin’ With Blithe)

Have a creative day,