How to make Truffula Pencils

My girls do not like going to the movie theaters. In fact, they don't like to watch movies at all. The only movie they would watch is Cinderella and which they have enjoyed many times at home. So when they asked if they could go watch Dr Seuss' The Lorax at the theater, Hubby and I couldn't get them into the car fast enough.

The movie was wonderful! We all enjoyed it tremendously and I love the ending quote so much I wanted to make a wall hanging that features the truffula trees.  I ended up making these truffula pencils for my kids instead.

To make these truffula pencils, I used:
- pencils
- white acrylic paint
- paint brush
- marabou feather trim
- hot glue gun (not pictured above)


I started off by painting the pencils with some white paint.

I let them dry by standing them on some super sticky foam tape.

I only put on one coat of paint on each pencil and so it dried pretty fast. Next I used another (used) pencil to add the stripes to the "tree trunk". If you like you could use a black Sharpie. Personally I prefer the look of the pencil.

So that the color of the pencil lead does not come off when the pencil is being used, I rubbed the color in with a paper towel. If you like, you can probably use a fixative. I didn't use my spray can of fixative on these because a.) it's late and I just wanted to finish this quickly, and b.) rubbing with the paper towel worked well enough for me.

When I first tried to attach the feather trim to the pencil, I put a drop of hot glue onto the pencil and attached the trim by slowly coiling it and adding more hot glue as I go.

Later on, I found it was easier when I coiled the trim first and attached the pencil to the coil with a strip of hot glue.

Once the trim has been attached to the pencil, just fluff it and it's done!

That's it! This project was so easy I think I'll make some more with the kids and let them give some away to their classmates. I can't wait to show these truffula pencils to the girls when they wake in the morning and see what they think.

One more note before I end this post: using the marabou feather trim can get pretty messy. Little feathers fly everywhere whenever I cut the trim. Consider yourself warned and I'm off to sweep the floor!


Update: (additional info, mar 15): I have since made a whole bunch of these pencils. The kids brought some to school and now all their friends want one! Anyway, if you are making these, do not cut off the trim before affixing the pencil on it. After you have hot-glued the pencil on to the trim (see 2nd last picture above), put another line of hot glue on to the part of the pencil that is showing. Now just bring the trim over the glue and cover that part of the pencil so that it no longer shows through the trim. Cut off the excess trim and you're done!