Hey there and for some of you welcome to the summer holidays! I hear all the teachers breathe a sign of relief and the parents start with the 'what do you do on those rainy days?' thoughts. Well hopefully we can help over the summer. We know that less of you are inclined to be checking out the blog in August, but hopefully we can give you a few smaller projects that you can do alone or with the kids to keep you going, whether they are yours or you are helping to look after them.
What better place to start than with something that could be super useful for adults and children whilst travelling around this summer. This No-sew pen roll, could be used for pencils, brushes or even the children's favourite twig collection over the summer - we all know they love a good collection! This project should take you less than half an hour to make and with a little drying time, you can be using it later the very same day, so lets get started ...
You will need: 40 x 22cm felt, 52 x 46cm cotton fabric, ribbon (forgot to photograph - oops), sharpie/fabric pen, scissors, ruler/tape measure, fabric glue, pens/items to put in your roll.
Step 1: Cut your felt into the right size and using a ruler/tape measure mark on one side your two sets of marks which will be for your pens to go through. The marks I made were 1cm in length every 2.5cm along the length of the felt. The first set of marks were 9cm up the short edge and then I drew another set 4cm up from there. Note: if your pens are longer/shorter/fatter you may need to scale up or down the fabrics/marks accordingly. Also - check out this really old long ruler I have from my parents - good old WHSmith - its so super useful. - #notspon
Step 2: Cut each of the marks by folding over the felt to make it easier. Also, these marks will be hidden later so don't worry about them being obvious.
Step 3: Cut your cotton fabric to size above and then check your sizing by folding over the edges so that this fabric will be slightly larger than the felt piece when put together. Start to glue down the edges when you have the correct sizing.
Step 4: When it comes to the corners of the fabric, fold over to neat corners like you would do if you were covering a book - do you remember having to cover your books at school? It was always going to come in useful later in life! Glue the corners down when you have a nice neat edge.
Step 5: Add glue to your felt on the side of all your marks, so that they will be nicely hidden from view. Make sure you glue around the edges and not all over as otherwise your pens will not fit into the pen roll.
Step 6: Check your sizing and that the glue has not attached to the wrong parts , by adding your pens.
Step 7: Roll your pens over to make sure it rolls neatly and you can see the size to check it is correct.
Step 8: Cut some ribbon that wraps around your roll with some spare for tying up around the front. Lay the ribbon down behind the roll so that it is in the middle.
Step 9: Hold onto the ribbon and flip the roll over so that you are able to glue the ribbon in place. Leave all the glue to dry properly before using it and voilà you are done.
This would make a great project to do with the children as well. The felt makes it really easy to cut and not fray whilst you are using it. You could also add felt to the back for ease and use less strong glue for the children - something like copydex would work. It would need to dry for a little longer, but still look just as great.
I have been practising my brush lettering after doing a workshop at Craftacular with the lovely Rebecca from
Betty Etiquette and so this pen roll will come in handy to take my pens with me for any adventures I am off on this summer. Or just to look pretty on my desk. The best thing about this project is that you can customise it with any fabrics of choice and its quick and simple to make - what's not to love!
Where are you off in the summer, will you be taking some art materials with you?
H,xxx
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