Back to school arts and crafts

For stress-free preparations to go back to school, rather than a mad stampede through the school supplies store, why not use decorative arts and craft techniques on your exercise books and pencils for school supplies just the way you want them! A "70s style" exercise book, with patterns and colors to take you back in time.

Giraffe pencil: this wooden pencil is painted and decorated with glossy brown patches with the help of a metallic felt tip pen. Once dry, the design is there to stay! The spiral pencil matches the colors of the "70s" exercise book and is very quick to make! Strips of crepe Rainbow tape (a Gluedots ® product) are glued all around the pencil. You can even do trial runs – the strips peel off easily, even strips that are stuck to other strips. Sure to impress!

Painted pen : using two felt tip/marker pens in contrasting metallic colors, it's easy to give this pen a fresh new look (its cylindrical shape makes it easier to paint on the vertical stripes). The fluorescent and gold pen : the starting point here is a pink transparent ballpoint pen and all you have to do is wind and then glue a length of metallic gold Rainbow Tape around the pen in a spiral. If you're worried that the metallic felt-tip ink will wear off with time, use special marker pens for wood and plastic.

A classy pen! This pen is completely covered in glitter glue, before being incrusted with seed beads and mini rhinestones in metal settings. A big thank you to Pascaline for this very pretty design.

This is another Rainbow Tape design: the front cover of a photo album in true scrapbooking style.