Altered Pencil Holder

This project motivation comes from my mum. She has collected lots of these toilet rolls and has been asking me to scrap it to a pencil holder. When I repeatedly ignored her request, she started making them by herself which was totally not scrappy at all.

I started by sealing the base of the holder using a chipboard, so that it is thick enough to withstand the weight of whatever you want to place in it. The trick here is to use a sanding block to sand off the extra bits of chipboard that did not blend into the sides.

The whole holder was then covered with gesso and 7 Gypsies Song Bird tissue paper. After it was dried, it was then sealed with gloss medium. After the gloss medium, I cut some flowers from the 7 Gypsies pattern paper, and sealed then again using gloss medium. The repeated coats of gloss medium gives the holder a sturdier look. Patience is the key. You need to wait for the gesso to dry then apply the gloss medium.

After the main body is complete, what's left it's the exciting part of embellishing the whole thing. Decided to keep it simple, using 7 Gypsies trims on the top and bottom (to cover the ugly connections), Tim Holtz sentiments and of course Prima flowers. The butterfly and the wordings were embossed using Aged Gold, my favourite embossing powder for the year!

Since my mum has lots of these toilet rolls, I'm intending to recycle them and make them into these pencil holders as Christmas gifts for my daughter's teachers. I wonder if it looks too cheapskate?

Materials Used: Recycle toilet rolls, 7 Gypsies Life is Good, 7 Gypsies Ribbons, 7 Gypsies Tissue Paper Song Bird Collage, Prima Flowers, Stamp Anonymous, Tim Holtz Philosophy tags.