This little pencil caddy can fit plenty of pens and pencils and is sturdy enough that it won’t be easily knocked over when eager little hands are grabbing for pencils. Since the pen and pencil containers are raised up into the air, they won’t be tipped over when papers or books are set on your desk and pushed around…because we all know that desk clutter happens! You’ll always have a pencil handy and won’t have to dig around looking for one.
It is definitely a unique and stylish accent to any desk!
This project is fun and versatile because you can customize it with any color or container shape that you’d like. Plus there is no cutting (yay!) and all you need are a few tools most of us have sitting around the house.
To make your desk top pencil caddy you will need the following supplies:
SUPPLIES
- one 9 inch chair leg (I got mine at Home Depot)
- two containers to hold pencils (I got mine in Target’s craft section)
- a 9 1/2 inch by 6 3/4 inch plaque (I found mine in the wood section at Michaels)
- ruler
- wood glue
- drill and 1/4 inch drill bit
- 2 screws
- paint
- marker and pencil
To start out, remove all stickers from the wood and make sure if any residue is left behind that it is washed off. Then paint all of the wooden pieces completely. If you are using spray paint like me it will take several coats to get an even finish. Make sure the paint is completely dry before moving on to the next step.
Now that all of your pieces are ready to go, we need to find the center of the plaque (or whatever base you choose) and mark it. Since my plaque had routered edges, when I did my measurements I only measured the center part of my plaque and discounted the routered part. Start by laying your ruler on the plaque and finding half length ways. For my base that measurement was 4 5/16 inches. Make a small mark with a pencil.
Now you will need to repeat the same process on the width side. My measurement came in at 2 15/16 inches.
Make another mark and you should have found the center of your base.
Since we bought a chair leg to be our post, it should have a screw on the bottom of it. We will be screwing the leg into the base. To do this we are going to need to pre-drill a hole in the base using a 1/4 inch drill bit. To do this you will first need to measure how far the screw sticks out of the bottom of the leg. My screw stuck out 3/8 of an inch. In order to make sure I didn’t drill a hole completely though the board, I took a marker and made a slight mark on the drill bit so I knew how far to drill.
Then on the center mark I drilled down just until the mark on my bit.
Around the center mark I put a small ring of wood glue. Even though we are screwing the leg in, I wanted to make sure that it would stay and wouldn’t be able to be unscrewed…I mean, its not like my curious little boys would do anything like that…ha!
Gently twist the chair leg into the hole. Wipe up any wood glue that may seep out around the edges.
Now all that is left to do is to attach the containers to the post. If your containers are oddly shaped like mine, you may need to add an 1/4 inch hex extension to your drill, so it is long enough to reach inside the containers and screw them to the post.
Before you attach the containers put a little bit of wood glue on the side of the post to make sure that the containers won’t slip around after they’ve been screwed on. Attach the containers by screwing through the inside of the container and into the post.
Now your caddy should be all done and ready to use. If needed, touch up any paint and then go ahead and set it on your desk and use it!
Now you too can be a little more organized for the upcoming school year!
Source: makeit-loveit.com