Hi everyone, Abby here! I’ve been spending the better part of the past year working to organize my craft space. To say it’s a “work in progress” is an understatement; our attic/home office overhaul has been quite the under-taking. I’ve arranged and re-arranged the furniture too many times to count. But now, I think I finally have everything where I want it, so it’s on to the finishing touches.
Currently, most of my supplies are grouped all over the space by type, but one thing I’m running short on is receptacles to store everything in. Luckily, I happened on this DIY, and I was sent down the rabbit hole of music-themed office supplies.
So today, I’ll be sharing two quick, easy DIY office supplies: Cassette Tape Pencil Holders and Record Bowls.
Not in need of some office organization? Cassette Tape Pencil Holders and Record Bowls make great gifts for the upcoming Holiday season!
For those of you that can join, I’ll be hosting another Craft “Day” Out with Goodwill Akron at the Arlington Road Goodwill Outlet location on November 12th from 3-4PM, where we’ll be making our own Cassette Tape Pencil Holders.
However, for those of you that can’t join us, read on for how to make your own Cassette Tape Pencil Holders and Record Bowls!
For the Cassette Tape Pencil Holders:
Supplies Needed:
- Four Cassette Tapes (with or without cases)
- Recycled Cardboard
- Scissors
- Hot Glue and Hot Glue Gun
- Pencil
- Any additional decorations you’d like
For the Record Bowls:
Supplies Needed:
- Old vinyl records
- Oven-Safe Bowl (s)
- Cookie Sheet
- Oven
- Oven Mitts
As previously mentioned, I used this DIY as a starting point for my pencil holders. The author suggests removing the bumps on the sides of the cassette tapes, but I didn’t have a knife readily available and was able to make my holder without doing this step.
So I went ahead and skipped right to hot gluing my cassettes together by their sides until they made a square.
Once my tapes were all glued together, I traced the bottom of them on a spare piece of cardboard.
Then I cut this piece out and hot glued it to the bottom of my Pencil Holder.
Once the cardboard was glued to the bottom of my cassette tapes, my pencil holder was all done! I had some extra pens lying around that needed a home, so I stored those in my pencil holder.
The cassette tapes I bought came in cases, so I thought; why not use the cases to make another pencil holder?
I picked out some pretty paper from my scrapbooking stash, cut it to size to fit in the cassette tape cases, and hot glued the sides using the same technique as above.
The beauty of this DIY? When I get tired of the current images and patterns in the cases, I can swap them out with new ones!
When I was all done making my Pencil Holders, I headed to the kitchen to experiment with melting old records.
I found a few resources online, but the general consensus is to preheat the oven to 250˚F and heat the records for 5-10 minutes. I used three different records and three different oven-safe bowls to get different shapes for my bowls.
You can place the record on top of the bowl right side up, and it will fall into the bowl.
Or you can place the record on the bowl upside down, and it will mold over the bottom of the bowl.
If you are feeling really brave, you can heat the record up and free form it with your hands (and oven mitts).
As you can see, the record will take on the form of the bowl, or whatever it is melting around. And the best part? They all look different!
Now that I have my pencil holders and bowls ready, it’s time to get organized in my craft space. Here’s a sneak peek!
See below for details on the upcoming workshop and the link to register. Hope to see you there!
Date: Saturday, November 12th, 2016
Time: 3P-4P
Location: Goodwill Akron Outlet, 1400 S Arlington St #150, Akron, OH 44306
Happy Crafting!