Pencil toppers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and look amazing on top of a pencil or even pen. Today, we will be making two pencil toppers in two different methods with any leftover scraps of either foam sheets or felt. You can even make them from colourful papers.

Things you need:

1. Pieces of felt/foam sheets/colourful papers (not more than three-inches in length and width)

2. Pencil

3. Scissors

4. White glue

5. One white paper

6. Black marker

Directions:

Note: For the drawing part, you can take help from an elder.

1. Make a template on a white piece of paper first: draw an outline of (a) a small car; (b) rectangular shaped-window; (c) a small semi circle for the windscreen and (d) two circles for the wheels as shown in picture, 2.

2. Cut them out, put them on the felt/foam sheet and cut accordingly, then paste them on their respective places, picture 3.

3. You will also notice the ‘=’ sign inside the outline of the car in the picture, this is where you have to make two small cuts of a pencil’s width to insert the pencil, see pictures 4 and 5. Leave it aside. (This is the first method to make the pencil topper.)

4. For our second pencil topper, the drawing part, will remain the same that is to draw an apple on the white paper, a small stem and two leaves, picture 6.

5. Use this template to cut the apple out from felt/ foam. But now you will be cutting two apples, picture 7.

6. Glue the edges of one apple, leaving the centre where you can see the ‘arrow’, this is where you will insert the pencil, picture 8.

7. Paste the other part of the apple on to it and glue the stem and the leaves on their respective places as shown in picture 9.

8. You can either paste googly eyes or cut two eyes from white or black felt then paste them in the centre of the apple, make a smile with the marker, leave it to dry, picture 10.

9. When completely dry, insert the pencil, picture 11.

The apple and a small car are just two examples, using any of the two method, you can make a variety of colourful pencil toppers.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 23rd, 2019