Personalized Pencil Wall Art Tutorial

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Instead of getting an end-of-year gift for Gabe’s teacher, we generally make a craft type project during Teacher Appreciation Week. This year Teacher Appreciation Week coincided with our wedding week, and I couldn’t get around to it. Last year, I made Gabe’s preschool teacher a Monogrammed Wall Canvas. I had made several wood projects for my wedding, and that inspired me to try my hand at another wood project for Gabe’s kindergarten teacher. A friend of mine showed me some wall art from somewhere like Bumblejax.com, so I thought it might have been a good idea to give something like that a try. Jeremy had some sassafras planks laying around that had already been planed; I believe a tree fell on the farm, and he likes to salvage everything. I decided it would be fun to create a pencil shape, paint it, and add her name using permanent vinyl. I absolutely love how this Pencil Wall Art turned out, and I doubt this will be the last one that we make. If you don’t count drying time, this project took about 30 minutes of actual working time to complete and a few dollars in craft supplies.

Pencil Wall Art Supplies:

• 3 foot wood plank/board about 7 inches wide
• Orange/red paint
• Yellow paint
• Gray paint
• Black paint
• Optional vinyl letters or stencil

Jeremy trimmed the back corners and then rounded them down with a sander to resemble an eraser, .

We used a straight edge to create the pencil point and Jeremy made the cut. The board was lightly sanded and I removed all residual dust. Jeremy drilled two holes that could be used to hang the Pencil Wall Art using nails/screws or string/ribbon.

Use painter’s tape to tape off the area that would be the pencil eraser, roughly 2 inches wide. I used an acrylic paint with a small sponge brush, the color was vermilion. I removed the painter’s tape before the paint dried completely to help prevent peeling. I used painters tape to repeat the step for the silver band, pencil lead tip, and yellow banded area. I left the wood grain showing through on the “sharpened” end.

• Tip use painter’s tape to tape off the “sharpened” area, and do so in an haphazard manner. When you actually sharpen a pencil, remember it won’t be entirely even. I wanted this project to resemble a real sharpened pencil as much as possible.

I thought about using a block letter font on the pencil, but Canva had recently added a few new script fonts (including Brusher, which I used on this project). I created a 24 inch by 6 inch image in Canva, and simply typed out his teacher’s name. I saved the image as a PNG file, and cleaned it up in Design Space before using my Cricut to cut the image. I cut it on the 24 inch long mat, and it measured approximately 22 inches in length.

I love using my Cricut to personalize projects, and I use my machine nearly every week. You could also use pre-cut permanent vinyl letters or paint them on with a stencil.

You could also make the project smaller to create a door hanger, or drill a hole in the tip or eraser to hang vertically.

Doesn’t this look just like a giant pencil? Gabe was so excited to give it to his teacher. I’m actually shocked he didn’t ruin the surprise because he had helped to paint it. I suggested that she use a marker and let all her students sign the back for a personal keepsake.

This Pencil Wall Art might be one of the easiest and cutest crafts that I have on the blog. If you decide to make this project, feel free to tag @asouthernmother on any social media site so that I can check it out and maybe share it with other readers.