DIY Pencil Holder Photo Block

For Mother’s Day, Laurie made me this beautiful photo block.   When my husband saw it, he fell in love with it.  It features, after all. pictures of one his favorite people.  I knew that with Father’s Day coming we needed to the same thing for him.  Because Laurie and I are crafters through and through, we did not want to do exactly  the same project, so we mixed it up a bit and made this Pencil Holder Photo Block for his desk.  I know he’s going to love it.

 How to Make a Pencil Holder Photo Block

Pencil Holder Photo Block supplies

Project Supplies:

  • 1 – 3″ wood block
  • Mod Podge
  • Craft Paint
  • Drill with a 1/2″ bit
  • 4 – 3″x3″ pictures

Drill holes for pens and pencils in the top of the wood block

As we have mentioned before, we have a lot of these 3″ square wood blocks in our craft supply stash.  My husband cut these for us from a 3″ X 3″ post we got at Home Depot but you can also find square wood blocks at craft stores.  For this Pencil Holder Photo Block project. the first step is to drill holes in the top of the wood block big enough to hold pencils and pens.  We wanted the holes to be big enough for Sharpies so we used a 1/2″ drill bit.  That was the perfect size.

Use tape to indicate how deep the hole should be

This was an old trick that my Grandfather taught me – wrap a piece of tape around the drill bit to indicate where you should stop drilling.

Drilling hole in wood block

When the tape hits the top of the wood, you know you’ve made the hole deep enough.

Drill 5 holes in the wood block

This is what the top of the block looked like after I had created the first hole.  I ultimately drilled five holes in the top of the wood block for pencils and pens.

Getting ready to paint the block

We chose Martha Stewart Metallic Black Nickel as the paint color.

Painted Pencil Holder Photo Block

But we only used one coat of paint.  It looked stained instead of painted, which we liked.

Photos for Pencil Holder Photo Block

We choose four pictures of my husband and my daughter at different ages – one for each side of the block.  Each photo here is 3″ x 3″.  We attached them to the block with Mod Podge.

Mod Podge the Photo Block

We covered the Pencil Holder Photo Block with three coats of Mod Podge to seal the pictures onto the block and to give it a little sheen.

The DIY Pencil Holder Block really turned out cute!  And was easy to make too, if you don’t count the various dry times (paint and Mod Podge) it probably only took a little over an hour to make.  We highly recommend this project – it is a fun unique gift!

Pinterest Inspiration:

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Pencil Holder Photo Block