Day 118: Colored Pencil Necklace

Supplies: Colored pencils, drill, saw, ruler, necklace chain

Time: 30 minutes

I was pretty young when my grandpa died, so I only have vague memories of him.  I wish I’d been able to know him better because from what I remember and what everyone says about him he was a great man.  My grandma sure knows how to pick ’em!  My grandpa had some awesome interests too.  He was a photographer and his dark room is still set up in my grandma’s basement.  He also made wood pens and wood cars for charities and a lot of his wood tools are still in my grandma’s shed.  I’ve seen several colored pencil necklaces on the internet in the last few months, so I thought I’d ask my dad to teach me to use my grandpa’s drill and band saw to make my own colored pencil necklace.  Since we spend Thanksgiving at my grandma’s house it was the perfect time to make a colored pencil necklace.

I started by marking each pencil with a sharpie.  I wanted to make each pencil nub an inch long, so I marked just past the 1″ mark to keep the marker from showing.

My dad suggested drilling holes in the pencils first so there’s something to hold on to.  Pick a drill bit large enough for the chain you have.  My dad was nice enough to take pictures for me while I was drilling and sawing.

Make sure you put the hole in the same place on every pencil.  Don’t put the hole too close to the cutting mark, but don’t put it too low either.

Then we headed to the band saw to cut the pencils.  Make sure you put a board behind the pencil so the blade has somewhere to go.

Cut off all of the pencil tips.  You can make a multicolored necklace with different pencils or you could just sharpen the same pencil over and over, drill a hole each time, and each sharpened piece off to make a necklace in one color.

Dust off of the pencils and string them on the chain.  I made one necklace with the bright colors and another with the darker colors.

I kept the dark one and my aunt immediately bought the other one.  I had a nice time exploring my grandpa’s shed with my dad last night and now I’m eager to learn more about wood working.  I probably shouldn’t get too attached because I don’t see myself having the facilities to do my own wood working in the near future…  We’ll see!

Best,

Alie