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Today I wanna show you how to make a DIY pencil holder out of foam board and stylize it with printable stickers. It’s a good time to start collecting Back to School ideas, so if you are a student or have school kids around you might wanna do this craft as a weekend project.
I used my K-pop clipart set to print some stickers for my pencil holder, and added other craft material such as plastic craft gems and paper shapes.
The K-pop clipart set includes 34 clipart graphics of the Korean music world, plus 13 digital papers. I chose a few graphics out of it for me pencil holder. You can see the whole set on Etsy:
How to make DIY pencil holder with printable stickers
Here is what you’ll need:
(below are some Amazon affiliate links)
• White foam board (I used 5 mm thick)
• Craft knife
• Ruler
• Glue
• This K-pop clipart set (or other graphics / printable stickers you like)
• Sticker paper for printing (Or regular paper + some glue)
• Paint
• Glitter paper sheet
• Paper punches
• Plastic craft gems
Step 1:
Start by making the box.
Cut the foam board into 4 panels sized 10.5 X 14 Cm (4.13” X 5.51”).
If you don’t feel like measuring manually you can use this template. Just print it out and use it as a stencil.
Step 2:
Glue the panels together to make the walls of the box.
Step 3:
Place the walls of the box on a piece of foam board and trace the bottom with a pencil. This will be the floor of the box.
Cut the bottom panel out of the foam board and glue it to the box.
Step 4:
I pasted stripes of paper along the box’s corners to cover the uneven cuts of the foamboard. It makes the box look nicer and it’s easier to paint over it later.
Do the following:
A. Cut 4 stripes of paper (about 1” or 2.5 CM). Make sure they are longer than the height of your box.
B. Fold each stripe of paper into half, lengthwise.
C. Glue the stripes along the corners of the box.
D. Trim the tops of the stripes, then fold the excess parts into the box and glue them to the inside of the walls.
Step 5:
Paint the box.
I used a piece of paper to make the geometric shapes. I covered one part of the box with the paper and blocked in each color separately.
Step 6:
Print the stickers.
I chose some graphics from my K-pop clipart set.
I scaled the graphics to fit my DIY pencil holder.
► Here is a tip for scaling printable stickers:
You can use Microsoft Word to scale your stickers and see what they would look like on the pencil holder template before you print them.
Here is how:
1. Open a new Word file. Insert the image of the box’s template and the PNG files of the graphics you’ll turn into printable stickers.
2. Make the sticker images go on top of the box’s template: click on the sticker image and then go to Layout -> Warp Text -> In Front of Text.
3. Scale the sticker image by pulling the corners of its bounding box. You can also set precise dimensions by clicking on Picture Format on the top bar.
4.If you want to flip a sticker, like I did with the heart sticker, click on the sticker and go to Picture Format -> Arrange -> Rotate -> Flip Horizontal.
5. Once you have your printable stickers set, remove the box’s template and print the page on sticker paper.
Step 7:
Time to decorate!
I placed the stickers om my pen holder and started playing with my other decorations.
And here is my completed DIY pen holder!
What do you think? Do you like the K-pop theme?
I’d love to make more printable stickers craft tutorials. There are many clipart sets in my Etsy shop that I can use for this purpose, and you can too! You’ll find all kinds of inspiring themes there (some of my popular ones are this Fairy Clipart Set, this Safari Clipart Set and Tropical clipart set)
In the meantime I’ll pin this DIY pen holder / pencil holder craft to my Pinterest.
Go ahead and Pin it too! ↓
Want more Back to school ideas?
You might like my collection of Kawaii school printables. Print out lunch box notes, water bottle label and notebook stickers: