Saw a fun back-to-school craft and got to try it for friend Abby's birthday! I bought the plain, un-painted pencils vs the yellow or painted ones. I wanted to sand a little so that the colors would stick better. The yellow ones really "shed" the color! I ended up using a hand sander and hitting them with it to clean off the shellac before painting. It also took off the words, which was helpful.
We just used acrylic craft paint, but I did buy some metallic and glitter paint to "punch things up" a little. The metallic was great. The glitter was more transparent, so it needs to be layered over another color.
I wanted a way to let the pencils dry without holding or propping them and decided that modeling clay (Dollar Store) blobs worked great. Just stick the eraser in the clay. I also got pre-sharpened pencils so there was something unpainted to hold on to on both ends.
Or, you can hang them from your nose!
Try dots, stripes, swirls, words, hombre (gradually light to dark) or any other ideas you can think of to decorate your pencils.
