I love doing pens. BEWARE! They can become addicting. They are so easy to do and are a great beginners project. I am going to show how to do 2 at the same time. One will be a regular size pen and the other a short pen for a key chain. It sure is hard to take pictures and do the tutorial with the camera in one hand and the clay in the other.
Materials:
Bic Stic Pen (I use several and cover them all so as not to waste the oven heat) These come in Black, Blue and Red ink.
Polymer clay- Scraps work great. Canes to slice and cover work great also.
File folder accordion pleated to bake the pens on.
Wooden skewer - The tall ones.
Sharp blade - either a tissue blade or an Exacto knife(Exacto blade or wire cutters will be needed to clip the pen for the short version)
Needle nose pliers - to remove the ink cartridge
Eye screw and keychain for short pen.
Optional: Future floor polish or a water based varathane like Flecto varathane diamond finish for a shiny look
Start by using your needle nose pliers and carefully grasp the plastic gold tip of the pen without grabbing the ink ball on the end. Gently twist and pull. The ink cartridge should come out easily. Lay the cartridge aside. If left in the pen, the ink reacts to the heat and can tend to explode in the pen and be unusable.
For the short pen, use the pliers to also temporarily remove the black tip the ink cartridge came out of. We are now going to shorten the pen. Take your Exacto knife or wire cutters and clip/cut the pen in two as shown in the picture between the Bic symbol and the word round. You can then take the longer piece with the end cap on and replace the black tip in the pen.