Over on the Suggest an Item page, Kate asked:

What can I do with old pencil stubs, the used ones that are too small to write with any more?

Stubs of old crayons are super easy to reuse – just melt a load down into a new, easy-to-hold shape and off you go – but I suspect pencils will be harder.

I vaguely remember being a kid and taping two together, end to end, to make a slightly longer, double-ended pencil – and it seems you can buy gizmos to help you do that now (although I’m pretty sure I just used tape).

I also know that Jane Eldershaw of JunkJewelry uses the ends of pencils in her work.

Any other reusing or recycling ideas?

Aside from formal social functions, frogs and the general state of the world, I don’t get stressed out by many things these days. My work is pretty enjoyable and if my colleagues (the cats) annoy me, I can just stroke them to calm me back down again.

But one thing that still manages to really get my goat is pencils with broken leads.

I love writing in pencil and get bizarrely attached to them sometimes (I had one when I worked at the uni that I kept through two jobs and three office moves) but sharpen, sharpen, lead snaps, sharpen, sharpen, lead snaps, sharpen, sharpen, lead snaps – then I snap. Said pencil is thrown across the room, therefore shattering its lead even further and making it throughly redundant as a pencil.

But if you’ve been reading this site for a while, you’ll probably have guessed by now that I don’t like throwing stuff away. So as was sung about in that old sea shanty, what shall we do with the broken pencils, what shall we do with the broken pencils, what shall we do with the broken pencils, early in the morning?

(Photo by lusi)