DIY Pen Holder For The Silhouette Cameo (or Portrait) Machine

I want to share a great video tutorial on how you can recycle a Silhouette sketch pen into a pen holder for different kinds of pens like gel pens, Uniball pens, etc. The video was posted on our Silhouette Brazil group on Facebook. The very ingenious tip was shared by Ana Carine Wedderhoff on her video tutorial, Recycle Silhouette Sketch Pen.

I never really cared for the sketch pens but this video got me so interested as I have a lot of gel pens. I shared the video on my other Facebook group, the PCA (Philippine Crafters Association) and a team member, Aj Fernandez, very kindly shared one of her Silhouette sketch pens with me and shipped it to me the very same day from the South. I was so elated with her sweet gesture. She even sent me a sticky note pad along with the sketch pen. I told Aj to retain the ink cartridge and to just send me the case. I just received the pen case this afternoon and I excitedly immediately worked on it. I used a small pair of scissors in making the hole bigger to slide the end of the gel pen ink cartridge through. The scissors is more manageable for me than heating a nail/screw as shown on Ana's video. Make sure to make the size of the hole just enough to slide the end of the cartridge through, the fit should be tight. You will need to make another sketch pen for a pen with thicker or thinner ink cartridge, so one sketch pen for every size of ink cartridge that you will be using. It only took me a few seconds to widen the hole, it was effortless so make sure to do this tad by tad, constantly fitting the cartridge until you get the right fit.

I created various samples for you to see how impressive the results are. Even if I have not tried any of the pen holders being sold out there, I think I can safely say that this recycled pen holder is at par with the best ones.

Most of the fonts are 'double-lined' which are not really good for sketching text. You need to choose the ones which are very thin and with a smaller size of text, the sketch will look like the font is 'single-lined'. I wonder if there is a technique in filling the text. If anyone knows how, kindly post a comment and share :).

My sincerest thanks to Ana Carine Wedderhoff and Aj Fernandez.

Happy crafting!

Ligaya

Silhouette sketch pen, courtesy of my PCA buddy, Aj Fernandez

The gel pen I used here has an embossed effect.

My black gel pen is old and its ink is skipping a bit.

The rose flower is a sketch design from the Silhouette store.

My gold gel pen sketches wonderfully. It has a beautiful sheen not captured on the photo.

I created an offset close to the outline of the frame for the cut line.

Finally, I can put these gel pens to good use.