Personalised pens

On the crafty forums of  MSE (moneysavingexpert.com) we strive to find gifts and crafts that don't cost us too much money, and obviously making our own handmade gifts is a good way of achieving this.  The crafters amongt us also like to source craft supplies that also don't cost us too much either so we are always on the look out for sales and bargains which we like to tell each other about!  (Come and join us on the 'Moneysaving Special Occassions Board' and swap some of your crafty ideas, its very friendly!)

Today's activity uses something I paid very little for, it is a 'Personalised Pen'.  I'll be honest, I had to make something very quick and easy today because we had visitors.
In our local cheap shop called 'The Depot' they had in the children's craft section, some  'Make your own Glitter Liquid Pens':

What you are meant to do with them is to put glitter, sequins and water (!!) into the plastic tube of the pen and close it up.  (I did actually try one of them for research purposes and it came to no surprise to me that it leaked!) I can't imagine these working in the hands of little ones, as I could see glitter and water going  everywhere!  Not such a good idea, but then for 99p for four what can you expect?  Actually, I didn't expect the biro part of them to work at all and was pleasantly surprised to find it did!  Which is why I used them for my project.  I found some decorative paper and, covered it with some very small stickers (an old range called  'Monstars,' from Paperchase), rolled the paper around the inside of the tube, put the top and bottom on and there you have it, a BIG personalised biro (they are 9" long).  You never know, it might even encourage my boys to write more and that is a BIG task too! lol.

You could also make a theme with them, valentines, easter, or match them up with notebooks, files etc.