Using scrap wood - Pencil Block

I saw this image from Better Homes and Gardens, and it's been on my mind ever since.

image courtesy of Better Homes & Gardens

The reason I'd been mulling it over and over was because I knew I had a large scrap piece of 4x4 in the garage.

There was this giant piece left over after we made the hose post for the back yard.

I measured out 8" (20.3cm) increments and cut it down.

Now in hindsight (and to save you wasting wood) you don't really need 8" pieces - you could easily get away with 4" or 6" - but since this was a test project I thought it better to have extra wood and then cut it down.

I gave them a sanding to get rid of any little burs and to make the top smooth.

  
Then it was time to drill the pencil holes.

I chose a drill bit that was just larger than a sharpie marker, because the pens in this house are usually bulky advertising pens that won't fit in a pencil-sized hole.

Then the spacing….
Let me tell you, it was good that I had 5 to test this out on - because I didn't get it right until attempt #4.

I put measurement marks on the wood and drew a grid.
Turns out that wood isn't perfectly square - so gridding it up won't necessarily give you perfect alignment.
(Plus, and to be honest, the drill skipped a bit and moved one or two holes for me).
That's two pieces down.

I tried freehand thinking "it's only 3.5" square - I can eyeball it".
Another piece down.

I then tried finding dead-centre by marking an "X" from corner to corner.
Once I had the centre circle drilled out - I found the centre of that hole and drew lines across it and up and down it.
This was what worked best for me.

I had Hubby use his table saw to cut an angle on the bottom of the block.  I'm going to guesstimate and say it's about 15 degrees.
I had him start at the corner and saw it that way so that it looked like the block in the BHG photo.  You could do this cut along a flat side and I'm sure it would look just as nice.

I painted up the top and then started mod-podging the fabric around the sides.
The tutorial from BHG used wrapping paper to wrap the block, but I wanted to see how it would look with this fabric.
I just folded a small hem and glued it down.

Not bad - not quite as good as I'd hoped though.

The photo above got me to thinking… "the blue faded out looks kind of neat…"  so I decided to try my hand at ombre.

  UPDATE:  August 28th, 2014
My friend Amazing Amy pointed out that scrapbook paper would probably work better (and was in fact suggested by BHG).
And they were both right.
Infinitely better!

Have a great one!
  
 






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