Pencil Case – a fitting home for my new pencils

 

New Pencil Box, Just waiting for more pencils

 

Here is the new pencil box I made over the Easter break.  As I said in my previous post, I went a little crazy and bought more colour pencils.  I already had the large set of prismacolor pencils and I bought the extra 18 pencils that they brought out a while ago.  Then I went mad and bought the large set of Caran d’Arche Luminance pencils, so I now have to house 214 coloured pencils and I wanted them all in one place.  The only answer is build my own pencil case.

I had been considering my options and had thought of trays of colours in a box, like my tin for the prismacolors, but I found that the trays were messy to spread out.  I wanted to see all my colours in one glorious array.  So I went back to how the old Derwents were packaged in the staggered, folding box.  The prized box of 72 Derwents, my heart desire as a child, I never did get them in one box, I saved my pocket money and bought them one at a time until I had the full set, but never got the box purchasing them that way.  Clearly I am making up for a traumatised childhood!

Stage 1 – Dividers

Stage 2 – Putting the dividers together

I  needed three boxes though and ended up with the capacity for 240 pencils, enough to allow for extras.  I made them out of four rows of twenty pencils with four compartments of five pencils in each row.  I made the rows and glued them together, each one offset by 4cm.  Four of these made up my three boxes.  I then made an outside box to stick them into and then covered them in bookbinding cloth with side bits that would wrap around each other so the became a box and I could store them and most of all take them with me.  For extra trickiness I cut little hatches in the back where there was a gap so I had a place to keep extras like sharpeners, pencil rubbers etc.

Stage 3 – Dividers into the folding boxes

I am really happy with the results, it is a bit stiff and doesn’t roll up completely square, but some of this will work out with use as it softens up.  The fact that it stands solidly on its own, means that I have all the colours in front of me which is handy.  I made little colour charts for behind the pencils, as I like them to go back into the same place.

Folded up

I am just waiting now for the Luminance pencils to arrive from England and I can complete it.  You may still get an update on it as I haven’t completed the closures and I will need a new colour chart to include the new pencils and perhaps some decoration on the outside.

Time to play some more with the contents.

Karen

New Pencil Box, Just waiting for more pencils