What can be made from old ballpoint pens. How to make a pen: a step-by-step DIY ballpoint pen workshop

It would seem that old markers and pens cannot be of any use, and there is no point in keeping them. But in fact, they can be given new life by applying in the household.

Spool of thread from an old felt-tip pen

If you are fond of needlework, then an old felt-tip pen can serve you well. First of all, you need to pull out all of its insides from the felt-tip pen, then use a file to cut off a part of the body of the desired size, and you're done. You can wind the thread on a makeshift spool. It is very practical and convenient.

Travel bed

Any woman knows that when going on a trip, you need to have a thread and a needle in your arsenal, as there is always a chance to damage your clothes. With the help of an extended cap from a felt-tip pen, you can make a convenient travel needle bed with your own hands. One has only to put a piece of foam rubber inside the cap or make a cap out of it, and voila, you can stick needles inside. With such a needle case, you can be sure that they will not get lost and will not be able to prick anyone.

Shelf holder

Many people know the problem of old Soviet cabinets - they often broke the parts that held the shelf, and it fell down with a crash. But this problem can be solved with the help of the case from the felt-tip pen. One has only to cut off a small part and insert it into special grooves in the cabinet. For reliability, you can fix all this with a drop of glue. Such a craft will remove the cabinet from the collapse of the shelves.

Seedling plate holders

If you are an avid summer resident and have a large vegetable garden, then you probably need special signs that indicate where which seedlings are located. You can make a holder for such plates using an old felt-tip pen. You just need to make a cross-section in the case, and insert a cardboard with the inscription there. There is another option - to make cuts on the cardboard, as shown in the photo below.

Curtain on the door

If you have a large number of old felt-tip pens or pens lying around, then you can easily make an unusual curtain for an interior door from them. Using a fishing line or thin wire, you need to assemble parts from pens or felt-tip pens into a single chain, each about two meters long (it is better to measure the doorway in the apartment). The curtain is almost ready, use screws or nails to fix it over the door, and the unusual decoration on the door is ready. You can diversify it with beads and other decorative elements.

Legs for small boxes

From the cut body from a pen or felt-tip pen, you can make a kind of stand-legs for small caskets, just keep in mind that they cannot withstand a lot of weight.

Everyone knows that the accumulation of unnecessary things only litters the apartment and does not give a normal life. But almost every person has a lot of things that could have been thrown away for a long time. A striking example of such items that are no longer needed, but it is a pity to throw them away, are old ballpoint pens. Usually they are set aside in order to subsequently replace the rod with a new one, but they still forget to do this. But few people know that you can make a lot of useful things out of old pens. Let's consider the most popular and attractive options.

Throw it away as unnecessary or apply correctly?

In the last century, no one threw away the written pens. My grandmother carefully collected them all and went to the store to buy new replacement rods. She did not always do this, and as a result, a huge number of empty pens accumulated in our house.

I wondered if it was possible to somehow apply them, and found many interesting options:

  • original decoration;
  • decor for a table lamp;
  • a toy for a child;
  • DIY jewelry;
  • stand for pencils.

Important! It is better if in the arsenal of a home craftsman there are many different pens with an end to the core. This will provide an opportunity to be creative and create unique crafts.

In fact, there are quite a few options where you can use this simple object. People do not even think that such a trifle as a body from an old writing instrument can diversify our life.

What can be made of handles for the home?

Crafts lovers will definitely appreciate the various crafts made from old ballpoint pen cases. Women needlewomen can experiment, creating unusual and original jewelry, which is suitable even for festive events, if it is made with high quality and with love.

Original decoration

From the casings of old pens, you can easily create attractive home decorations. For example, decorate a clock mechanism with a dial along the contour with multi-colored pens or felt-tip pens, having removed the caps first.

Another option, more complicated, would be the construction of an unusual night light in the form of chaotically assembled handles with transparent bodies. They are assembled into a single structure using dense fishing line. Any form can be.

An LED strip is pulled through each body from the rod and connected to a power supply so that they can flicker in the dark. It is better if the night light is assembled from a large number of identical handles with a transparent body.

Table lamp decor

An original shade for a table lamp can be made from handles matched to each other, which will be fastened together with a wire or glued together with resistant glue. Handles with a transparent or translucent body look attractive. They create a magical shimmer of light in the room.

Each handle is carefully coated with glue and the next body is glued to it, rounding off the structure. In a toga, you should get a round shade, which must be attached to a table lamp. You can take a plastic bottle or jar as a template, along the contour of which the handles will be glued. Subsequently, the bank will need to be removed.

The resulting structure needs to be reliablyattach to the table lamp frame using a wire. The light bulb should be inside the structure and flicker through the housings from the handles. This decor looks very original and pleasing to the eye.

Baby toy

For little girls, miniature dolls will be interesting. For this, the head of the future doll is formed from a small ball, covered with cloth, the mouth, eyes and nose are outlined. The old handles will serve as the body of the doll. With the help of dense fishing line, the torso, arms and legs are formed, connecting several old handles together. Hair is formed from threads, and a dress or other clothing is formed from small pieces of fabric. The doll is ready.

DIY Jewelry

Here you can show your maximum imagination. You can simply string the multi-colored caps on the fishing line and create an unusual necklace in a modern style, or cut the bodies of the multi-colored plastic pens into large beads and show your creative thinking: the resulting beads can be alternated by stringing or creating bright patterns from them.

Important! For lovers of beading, working with such beads will become a new and original activity, thanks to which you can create unusual things and jewelry.

Pencil holder

To make an original stand, you will have to stock up on glue, a thick sheet of cardboard or a small piece of chipboard, as well as a certain number of old ballpoint pens. A bottom is cut out of chipboard or cardboard, it can be round, square - it depends on the desire of the master.

Next, you need to glue the bodies of old handles with reliable glue. They are glued vertically, preferably gluing to each other, so that the structure is stable. Subsequently, the resulting stand can be varnished or left unchanged.

Each housewife can independently dream up about the use of old ballpoint pens. But we can definitely say what to throw away material,so valuable for home crafts, not worth it.

Summer will begin very soon and parents will need to come up with different activities for their children every day. One evening, you can give a real master class on how to make a pen yourself from materials available at home.

For any person, it is a pen that is a necessary thing almost throughout his life. Therefore, after looking at a photo of a homemade pen, it is not at all surprising that there is a desire to try to perform all the actions and make a pen on your own.

Paper pen: how to make

Take one plain sheet of classic A4 paper. From its long side, you need to measure 14 cm. This is slightly more than the length of any used plastic rod.

On the other side, about 10-12 cm is measured, which is less than the rod. This is an important point that must be observed so that the lower part of the handle can be made in the familiar shape of the famous cone. Further, the marks are connected by drawing a line. Subsequently, it is necessary to cut the sheet along it.

On the other side of the sheet, where 14 cm was previously marked, it is necessary to apply glue, carefully wrap the prepared rod.

It is important to follow the instructions on how to make a pen without deviating from it in anything. After the glue has dried, the paper is wrapped around the entire core as tightly as possible, and its edge must be additionally coated with glue so that in the future your craft does not unwind during operation.


While doing the work, make sure that the cone is formed only at the bottom of the office supply, since the other part must be as flat as possible. If for some reason this cannot be done, the situation can be corrected with a knife.

The created handle can be painted with absolutely any acrylic paint for beauty. It is advisable to choose exactly acrylic, because after it dries, it will not dissolve with water.

If you decide to use watercolor / simple gouache while decorating the pen, then be sure to cover the part of the pen that you cover with them with varnish. Otherwise, you may get your hands dirty later on while using the pen.

Ready-made stationery can be pasted over with beautiful paper, which today is often used in scrap / for gift wrapping.

An interesting idea is to use for pasting pages of a glossy magazine or the recently popular foil tape, which glitters.

From prolonged use, it happens that the paper starts to wipe. To avoid a repetition of this situation with the paper used for the pen, it is best to additionally glue it over with transparent tape or varnish it.

Of course, today in any store you can buy a simple pen, but if you are looking for what you can make a pen from at home, then you are an admirer of exclusiveness, and in combination with a large number of different master classes where you can learn how to create various crafts and office supplies, you can create a pen that no one else will ever have. Moreover, such a pen can even be handed to a friend as an author's gift.

Wood handle

Looking through various original ideas for homemade pens, you have probably already stumbled upon the option of a wooden handle and therefore now is the time to dwell on it in more detail.

What materials might you need?

Several metal tubes, a simple rod, a mechanism that would later be used for a pen, a few blanks of wood, sandpaper and glue.

All actions will need to be performed using a lathe. Therefore, thinking about how to make a frame for a pen yourself, take care of finding it in advance.

Keep in mind that the use of any finishing materials will affect the color of the wood. Therefore, it is best to test on any waste before you start applying them to the finished product. This will avoid unexpected results.


A band saw, like a cut-off machine, is potentially dangerous if misused, so it is important to use them with maximum care and comply with all safety requirements.

Do not let the vapor of different varnish / adhesives adversely affect your health. It is best if they will be used exclusively in a ventilated room, and as far as possible from materials that are flammable.

When working, after stripping metal pipes, be sure to lubricate them with good quality glue.

In the absence of wood blanks, you can create them yourself using the online lesson.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that today more and more people are asking how to make a pen with their own hands every day, which is explained by a number of different factors. Having learned how to do it yourself, you can present a pen as a gift to your business partner or one of your friends.

The creation of even ten such pens will cost several times less than ordering them at any enterprise.

Photo of the idea of ​​homemade pens

1 / 5 ( 1 vote)

Take a look at your desk. Surely a couple (or even a dozen) ballpoint, gel, expensive, cheap - in a word, different pens were lying in it.
If so, let's create a useful thing out of them or find a worthy use for them!

What a gift pen should look like

A branded auto or fountain pen is a thing that is designed to emphasize the high status of the owner.

The decoration of this gift must be impeccable.

Manufacturing companies release products in packaging boxes or cases, which are enough to tie with a beautiful bow - and the gift is ready to be handed over.

But to many, this will seem a little original, because there are many excellent packaging methods:

  1. Wrap the box with a handle with wrapping paper. Cut the feathers out of a sheet of a suitable color or thick newspaper.

  2. Make a fringe cut along the contour of each feather. Fold the folds neatly down the middle. Then arrange the blanks together, glue them to the wrapper and tie them with twine or woolen thread.

  3. If the pen is intended for a person from the writing environment, then the packaging in the form of a book is a 100% hit.
    Cut out 3 parts from thick cardboard: a spine and 2 cover sheets. Glue them with small gaps to the material that the book will be wrapped with: textiles, paper, leather. Cut off the excess, leaving allowances that need to be folded onto the cardboard.

  4. Now select a suitable sized piece of paper for the endpapers and carefully stick it on the inside. On the back flyleaf, attach a box a couple of millimeters smaller than the cover itself. It is better to choose cardboard for her in a yellowish shade - to match the color of the book pages.

    The counterfeit book is almost completed. It remains to decorate the cover and provide it with strings. Everything is used: buttons, beads, lace, newspaper clippings. And if the future owner of the pen is working on writing a real book, then decorate the packaging in accordance with the content of the future work. You can present a gift with the words: "Is the pen big, but does it write big books" and wish you fruitful and uninterrupted work.

  5. The handle can also be hidden in a tall jar filled to the brim with various sweets. Why them? A writing person thinks a lot and hard, and glucose will help the thought process! Decorate the container itself to your taste. A simple option is ribbons.

  6. Scroll-shaped packaging is also easy to make. Aged paper looks impressive. Soak the leaves in the tea leaves, dry them. Give the edges a frayed look, and tear in several places. At the end of the finished parchment, make 2 slots (top and bottom) for ribbons or twine, then secure the present. The remaining free space in the scroll will be occupied by the text.

    An interesting move is to write a comic decree (you can be inspired by the imperial decrees of Peter I, for example) and leave a place for a signature. When the "king", and also the future owner of the pen, reads the decree, reaching the end of the scroll, he will find the "pen" and put his signature under the direction. This is how you can present a gift to your boss.

  7. You can also romantically present a pen. To do this, wrap it with a ribbon (satin or lace), and at the end attach a flower made of fabric or even newspaper.

Surprise for your child

Do you know where to put a pile of unnecessary pens? What can be made from a pen at home? We will tell you and show!
A cute doll for children can be created on the basis of an ordinary ballpoint pen. In this craft, she will act as a torso.

A ping-pong ball is suitable for a doll's head. Punch a hole in the ball and slide it over the handle. The costume can be "sewn" from both fabric and paper using origami technique. If the choice is for a fabric dress, add extra volume to the body by winding cotton wool around it.

As for the hair, the material can also be different. It is cut into strips and glued to the ball.

Hair made of paper does not need to be left straight, it is easy to turn it into curls by winding it on a rod or pulling it off with scissors (depending on the weight of the paper). It remains to finish the face. You can draw it with felt-tip pens or stick on pieces of colored paper.

A more perfect model of the doll is created using the so-called foamiran, a suede-like texture. Its uniqueness lies in its ability to stretch and take any shape when heated.

To create these models, details of clothes and shoes, pieces for tight-fitting the head and body are cut out of plastic suede. This work is laborious, so it is better to start with small details from foamiran. For example, only heads.

The foam ball is covered with a piece of plastic suede, preheated with an iron, all excess is neatly cut off. The workpiece is removed from the ball in order to then put it on the glue. Hair is created. Then they are cut into a fringe, any hairstyle is formed and glued to the head.

To attach the finished doll head to the body, i.e. Handle, wrap a layer of suede around it. The parts of the toy are easy to glue together.

For a dress, cut a piece of fabric, sew it on the sides, pull it off with a thread on top and put it on the handle. You can sew on handles made of foamiran.

When the ability to work in this technique comes, proceed to more complex toys.

https://miaset.ru/education/tips/handle.html

Caps as details of a volumetric panel

A mosaic of old fountain pen caps? Why not, you can make any picture in the mosaic technique: a portrait, a landscape, a still life. Print the image you like in the desired format and color on lined paper. Apply the same grid of cells to a cardboard or plywood sheet (base for a picture).

Each color cell on the printout corresponds to a cell on the blank; a cap of the corresponding shade is selected for it.

For the first experiments, it is better to opt for pictures without an abundance of shades, otherwise there will be difficulties with the color selection of the caps.

If the caps are with a stick, it must be cut off. We attach the caps to the lined mesh with glue of a suitable color.

Additional volume is created by using caps of different heights. In the figure, we determine the most convex part of the object (on the apple it is the middle of red) and the flattest (top and bottom). In accordance with this, we distribute the caps on the panel along the height: at the top and bottom - short, and increasing towards the middle, where the highest will be located. The height can be adjusted by simply cutting off the bottom of the cap.

This work can be done with screws too, but the caps will do the job just fine too!

Tip: if the desired shades are not enough, just paint the caps in the desired color!

Useful application of an already useless pen


Convenient and original storage of stationery

What to think of in addition to the classic and already boring delivery:


How many more interesting, good things can you create from a simple pen? As much as fantasy allows! It is possible that the listed ideas will push you to create your own masterpiece, which you will share in the comments.

1 / 5 ( 1 vote)

Take a look at your desk. Surely a couple (or even a dozen) ballpoint, gel, expensive, cheap - in a word, different pens were lying in it.
If so, let's create a useful thing out of them or find a worthy use for them!

What a gift pen should look like

A branded auto or fountain pen is a thing that is designed to emphasize the high status of the owner.

The decoration of this gift must be impeccable.

Manufacturing companies release products in packaging boxes or cases, which are enough to tie with a beautiful bow - and the gift is ready to be handed over.

But to many, this will seem a little original, because there are many excellent packaging methods:

  1. Wrap the box with a handle with wrapping paper. Cut the feathers out of a sheet of a suitable color or thick newspaper.

  2. Make a fringe cut along the contour of each feather. Fold the folds neatly down the middle. Then arrange the blanks together, glue them to the wrapper and tie them with twine or woolen thread.

  3. If the pen is intended for a person from the writing environment, then the packaging in the form of a book is a 100% hit.
    Cut out 3 parts from thick cardboard: a spine and 2 cover sheets. Glue them with small gaps to the material that the book will be wrapped with: textiles, paper, leather. Cut off the excess, leaving allowances that need to be folded onto the cardboard.

  4. Now select a suitable sized piece of paper for the endpapers and carefully stick it on the inside. On the back flyleaf, attach a box a couple of millimeters smaller than the cover itself. It is better to choose cardboard for her in a yellowish shade - to match the color of the book pages.

    The counterfeit book is almost completed. It remains to decorate the cover and provide it with strings. Everything is used: buttons, beads, lace, newspaper clippings. And if the future owner of the pen is working on writing a real book, then decorate the packaging in accordance with the content of the future work. You can present a gift with the words: "Is the pen big, but does it write big books" and wish you fruitful and uninterrupted work.

  5. The handle can also be hidden in a tall jar filled to the brim with various sweets. Why them? A writing person thinks a lot and hard, and glucose will help the thought process! Decorate the container itself to your taste. A simple option is ribbons.

  6. Scroll-shaped packaging is also easy to make. Aged paper looks impressive. Soak the leaves in the tea leaves, dry them. Give the edges a frayed look, and tear in several places. At the end of the finished parchment, make 2 slots (top and bottom) for ribbons or twine, then secure the present. The remaining free space in the scroll will be occupied by the text.

    An interesting move is to write a comic decree (you can be inspired by the imperial decrees of Peter I, for example) and leave a place for a signature. When the "king", and also the future owner of the pen, reads the decree, reaching the end of the scroll, he will find the "pen" and put his signature under the direction. This is how you can present a gift to your boss.

  7. You can also romantically present a pen. To do this, wrap it with a ribbon (satin or lace), and at the end attach a flower made of fabric or even newspaper.

Surprise for your child

Do you know where to put a pile of unnecessary pens? What can be made from a pen at home? We will tell you and show!
A cute doll for children can be created on the basis of an ordinary ballpoint pen. In this craft, she will act as a torso.

A ping-pong ball is suitable for a doll's head. Punch a hole in the ball and slide it over the handle. The costume can be "sewn" from both fabric and paper using origami technique. If the choice is for a fabric dress, add extra volume to the body by winding cotton wool around it.

As for the hair, the material can also be different. It is cut into strips and glued to the ball.

Hair made of paper does not need to be left straight, it is easy to turn it into curls by winding it on a rod or pulling it off with scissors (depending on the weight of the paper). It remains to finish the face. You can draw it with felt-tip pens or stick on pieces of colored paper.

A more perfect model of the doll is created using the so-called foamiran, a suede-like texture. Its uniqueness lies in its ability to stretch and take any shape when heated.

To create these models, details of clothes and shoes, pieces for tight-fitting the head and body are cut out of plastic suede. This work is laborious, so it is better to start with small details from foamiran. For example, only heads.

The foam ball is covered with a piece of plastic suede, preheated with an iron, all excess is neatly cut off. The workpiece is removed from the ball in order to then put it on the glue. Hair is created. Then they are cut into a fringe, any hairstyle is formed and glued to the head.

To attach the finished doll head to the body, i.e. Handle, wrap a layer of suede around it. The parts of the toy are easy to glue together.

For a dress, cut a piece of fabric, sew it on the sides, pull it off with a thread on top and put it on the handle. You can sew on handles made of foamiran.

When the ability to work in this technique comes, proceed to more complex toys.

Caps as details of a volumetric panel

A mosaic of old fountain pen caps? Why not, you can make any picture in the mosaic technique: a portrait, a landscape, a still life. Print the image you like in the desired format and color on lined paper. Apply the same grid of cells to a cardboard or plywood sheet (base for a picture).

Each color cell on the printout corresponds to a cell on the blank; a cap of the corresponding shade is selected for it.

For the first experiments, it is better to opt for pictures without an abundance of shades, otherwise there will be difficulties with the color selection of the caps.

If the caps are with a stick, it must be cut off. We attach the caps to the lined mesh with glue of a suitable color.

Additional volume is created by using caps of different heights. In the figure, we determine the most convex part of the object (on the apple it is the middle of red) and the flattest (top and bottom). In accordance with this, we distribute the caps on the panel along the height: at the top and bottom - short, and increasing towards the middle, where the highest will be located. The height can be adjusted by simply cutting off the bottom of the cap.

This work can be done with screws too, but the caps will do the job just fine too!

Tip: if the desired shades are not enough, just paint the caps in the desired color!

Useful application of an already useless pen


Convenient and original storage of stationery

What to think of in addition to the classic and already boring delivery:


How many more interesting, good things can you create from a simple pen? As much as fantasy allows! It is possible that the listed ideas will push you to create your own masterpiece, which you will share in the comments.