Workshop DIY: Metal Pen Holder Decoupage

Metal Pen Holder Decoupage

As an Engineering student we get to learn a lot of things and get our hands dirty while doing so. And this dirt is the good kind, the one that you get from workshops and team building. I sure love me some workshops! Anyway, as a PhD student, I get to teach the undergraduates from my department in the labs or take their tutorials. In the process, we not only teach them new things, we also get to make and break things.

Like this:

I made this pen holder out of a carbon steel sheet at our uni workshop. All the tools are available to use and the design is also way easier than it looks, just cut, cut, cut and bend, bend, bend, and punch, punch, punch, and spot weld here, and rivet there and you have a solid metal pen holder in just about an hour… But alas! As all material engineers (or mech for that matter) would know, cast steel rusts like an apple left cut open. You can see it happening here already:

Needless to say I had to do something to it to keep it from going all rusty. So, here's what I decided to do to preserve it from any further damage, I decided to paint it! But that's not all, I have been wanting to do a DIY involving decoupage for sometime now so this was a perfect opportunity to do just that:

Here's what I used:

1. 150ml of white spray paint
2. Floral decoupage tissue paper
3. PVA wood glue
4. Sponge
5. Pair of scissors

Step 1: First, spray paint the holder completely with white paint. It does not matter if the paint is not even, it will be covered with decoupage anyway.

Step 2: Next cover it with a thin layer of PVA glue with a sponge and stick on the decoupage pieces one by one.

You can either paste a large piece of decoupage tissue at once or cut out individual flowers and stick them in different ways separately.

In case of regions with holes, just press them down with the sponge and even them out gently either using the sponge or even finger. It doesn't take much effort and you'll find that it's rather easy to smooth out the creases too...

Step 3: Finally apply another thin layer of glue all over the holder making sure each of the floral decoupage have stuck securely, then let dry. Do not rub it down hard with too much glue of the paper will mush up, detach and dough up into a ball of paper and glue.

And there you go, rusty pen holder all dandy and floral now, just how I like it :)