I carry a pen with me wherever I go, and because I hate rummaging in my ever-deepening purse for a pen, I prefer to keep one in my pocket. This is great until you sit down and get stabbed in the thigh by a pen. Mini pens are great because this never happens. They’re exactly the right size to fit horizontally in your pocket, but companies seem to think they can charge a premium for half a pen (kinda like buying lingerie). This is where DIY comes in. I figured out a way to take your basic Bic Clic Stic pens and make your own mini pens.
- First, buy yourself a twelve-pack of Bic Clic Stic Retractable Ball Pens (I’ve done the shopping for you–it’s the best deal I could find–if you find a better one, please let me know).
- Second, wiggle the click part off the pen–this is easiest to achieve by twisting.
- Third, score a line all the way around the pen with an X-ACTO Knife at the period after med.
- Snap the pen. The plastic is pretty brittle and easy to snap, and it should break at the line you scored.
- Sand a bit of the jaggedness away so it looks nice and purty.
- Cut the same amount off the ink well. I.e., if you cut off an inch and a quarter of the barrel, cut an inch and a quarter off the ink well. It’s nice to do this to pens you’ve been using for a while so you don’t waste any ink, and also so you don’t get ink on your hands when you cut the ink well.
- Stick the clicker back in. THIS IS HARD, unless you do like I do and shave a little of the plastic off of the clicker with your blade. The middle of the barrel is slightly narrower than the end, so shaving a TINY bit of plastic off makes it much easier to stick the clicker back in.
- Voila! A perfectly sized pen to match a pocket-sized notebook.
one small step for writers and one small pen for all your notebooks
That’s the perfect tag line for this post, Jer.