Pretty nifty pen holder, huh?
Where did all these stinkin' light switch and electrical outlet covers come from? A box in my storage room.... that I hadn't looked at in at least 4 years! Why do I have them in the first place? Not a clue! Since they were just sitting and taking up space, I decided that they needed to be a pen holder. (Great logic, eh?)
In the same box I found a few bottles of old nail polish that had seen better days. Since I try to avoid wearing toxins these days, they were perfect candidates to add some pizzazz to my pen holder.
Tools:
- Scissors or utility knife
- Pencil
Supplies:
- Old nail polish
- E6000 (Hot glue does not work to attach the covers to one another.)
- Cardboard
- Glue gun
- Glue sticks
- Trace the outline of your outlet or light switch covers on cardboard.
- Cut out just inside the lines.
- Press the cardboard inside the back of the covers and continue trimming until they fit perfectly.
- Paint the covers with nail polish.
- Once the first coat is dry, press the cardboard in the back of each cover and paint through to the cardboard that may be seen from the outside. No need to paint the entire piece of cardboard if no one will see it!
- Add another coat or two of nail polish if desired.
- Wait at least 8 hours or overnight.
- Use a glue gun to glue the cardboard onto the back of the covers.
- Moving quickly, apply E6000 to the side of one cover to attach to another cover, with the goal of a sqaure/cube.
- Hold for at least 5 minutes.
- Using what you just made as a template, trace a square on cardboard. This will be used for the bottom of the cube.
- Cut out square.
- Glue the cardboard square to the bottom of the covers, and continue to glue with E6000 until you have a fun pen holder!
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Leanna is Hipcycle Scholar at Hipcycle. In her spare time, she enjoys finding new uses for her garage sale finds, particularly anything to do with the written word. She would love to hear from you at [email protected]!
