Stationery: pens & pencil tin

This idea was actually given by a friend who did it to her pens, and I think it's such a simple but brilliant idea. So much so that almost all my pens look like that now.

A really cheap and easy way to decorate your pens!

Basically you just grab a magazine (I use IKEA's, 'cause they always have such nice prints), flip through to find some nice patterns, and cut out rectangular pieces of them, roughly estimating the length and width need to wrap it around the ink stem. For the pens that I use (Pilot G-Tec, pictured), it has to be magazine paper in particular, 'cause only magazine paper is thin enough to be inserted.

Take out the ink stem from the pen, wrap the slip of magazine paper tightly around the ink stem, and carefully insert it back into the pen. And that's it, you have a cute new pen! Simple and environmentally-friendly isn't it? Because you're using magazines you've read. And also because the pens are so pretty, you'd rather buy refills than a new pen. You can even regularly change the design of your pen, simply by taking out the slip of paper!

And this is my newly decorated pencil tin:

I bought a plain black pencil tin when I was in Osaka. It came with silver alphabet stickers for me to decorate it with, but while shopping on another day, I came upon the stickers section in a departmental store, and I saw these alphabet stickers in colored crayon font, and I knew I had to use them for my new pencil tin. I even grabbed the hiragana (japanese alphabet) version of the stickers, which I have yet to use. It took a while to come up with the quote, given that there are only 5 of each alphabet, in particular the vowels. But this is what I came up with, and I am pretty pleased :D