The world for a pen!

I'm sure all of you can understand this next scenario. You get a phone call. The person on the other end has some information to give you, that needs to be written down before you forget. Oh crap! Where, where, WHERE is a pen???  I grew tired of the hide and seek game that all the pens in our house was playing. When coming across a pen randomly laid out on our counter, or table, or floor, or laundry room, I would then walk it over to the side table in our living room. We have our couches in an L shape with a large square table in the corner. After a while I had gotten quite the collection. So much so that it was taking over and looking way too cluttered. But what to do with them all? I still wanted them to be accessible, but not neccesarily in the large heap pile they were in at the time.

The solution came to me in the kitchen. I was at the sink, cleaning out several items intended for the recycling bin. For supper the night before we had opened two cans of peas. And the cans looked like a perfect container for all the pens I had accumulated. So once the insides of the cans were clean, I then tore the labels off.

But they still needed a little something else. Don't you agree?

And yes, that is one HUGE pen there in the middle. My daughter bought it from a Mother's Day fundraiser at her school. What's that? You'd like to see it? I knew you'd ask ;)

All together now...awwww! I'm so loved

So I'd love to say that I covered the metal cans right away. My original thought was to cover them in scrapbooking paper, and scrapbooking embellishments. Lord knows I have enough laying around. But for some reason the task of measuring and cutting the paper was more than I felt I wanted to take on at the time. So there they say..in the metal cans for about a week.

Just as I was about to give in to the measuring and cutting of paper, another idea hit me. I still had some burlap leftover from my table runner for my tv stand that I could use, as well as some leftover fabric from another art piece.

I don't have pictures of the process of putting the cans together. Sorry, bad blogger! But I do have the after shots.

The first one is covered with some brown fabric, a little piece of webbing leftover from the same table runner, and a set aside piece from an old necklace.

I used my handy dandy glue gun to attach each of the fabrics to the can, with the seams lining up in the back. It still needed a little more embellishment. And what's better than using something you already have? I had bought a necklace a couple years ago, but never liked the tassel the hung from it. I had removed it before wearing the necklace, but didn't want to part with it.

I ran a piece of embroidery thread around the can to hang it from.

As for the second can, I wanted to go with something a little "frillier". I felt like the one above felt a little structured, so I wanted to soften the other one a little. It got covered with the burlap, white ribbon, and some white felt.

After seeing these felt pom pom flower type things all over blogland, I had been wanting to make one. I just hadn't had the right place or reason. It was perfect for this situation. Opposite of the first can, I left the unfinished seam in the front. I wanted to be able to see the fringe left on the top and seam. I then ran some white ribbon around the can with the seam also in the front so that it could be covered by the felt.

And there you have it. Recycled vegetable cans into functional but pretty pen and cord organization.

Pay no attention to the layer of dust on the lamp. Geez, what was I thinking??

But you get the idea. Now when I get those phone calls, I know exactly where to go for something to write with. No more hide and seek playing with the pens. Now just if the paper would come out of it's hiding, I'd be golden. It never ends!