Back to School Decorated Pencils

Here’s one quick way for your kids to get creative and personalize their back-to-school pencils. I just pulled out my handy-dandy stash of Sharpies and tried a few different looks: animal skin, flowers and stripes. I’m sure kids could think of many more. Fish scales? Reptile skin?...1. You may have read on my “Favorite Supplies” list that I prefer Ticonderoga pencils to almost any other brand. Others are often made off-center, or have wood that chews up in a sharpener, or lead that is too light. I like the quality of these, plus the nice yellow color is a good base to work with. The one coloring tip I can offer is that it helps to put your pencil on a little ledge of some kind (I used a book) so that one end can extend over. When coloring with the Sharpie, try to rotate the pencil in the air as you color so that the marker has a few seconds to dry before it touches the paper. The color does set up fast, but if you touch it right when it’s still wet, it will smudge. To make the leopard skin look. I started by making lots of brown spots all over, and then drawing black “C” shapes or “O” shapes all around them.