I was in my local DIY store when I noticed a 20 inches by 8.5 inches wooden picture frame and thought of a different use for it. I bought it together with a pair of drawer runners. I also bought triangular cross section beading, with one side concave.

When I got home I removed the glass and border card from the frame and glued in their place two pieces, back to back, of the beading every ¾ - 1 inch to form the pen tray (different sized trays for different sized pens). The base and beading were then covered with a velvet surface blue paper. It would have been easier to use a proper liner – see http://www.wndpens.com/acc/liner.htm

The runners were attached to the side of the picture frame. I found in the garage ‘bits & pieces’ a small bracket (used at the back) and also two small plastic mounting blocks (used together at the front) that you use for joining wood at right angles. These formed the pillars to mount the left side runner frame. (didn’t have 2 brackets or 4 joining blocks!) The right runner frame was then screwed to the inside of the desk near the top. Insert draw and the job is done.

The only tools you need are a screw driver and some glue and either a small saw to cut the beading or scissors for the proper pen tray liner.

My desk is very untidy but at least I can now keep my pens where I can readily find them (well mostly!).

Anyone any other pen related DIY tips?

Peter

Neat Idea

Nice project but the green ripple doesn't match the blue background. You had better send it to me before the fashion police notice

Andy

Good innovative thinking, Peter, and I think that green goes well with the background!

Good idea to resize your images to about 800 pixels wide to facilitate reading the text w/o having to scroll. 800 wide looks like this and gives the idea of the job w/o scrolling, also.

No, Andy, there's probably more fashion police in California than in Missouri...He'd better send me the green ripple!!!

Peter, very good idea! And thanks for the link and the photos!

Best, Ann

P.S. Also, thanks to Roger for mentioning resizing of photos.

Great, simple and neat result!, you have visualized quite clearly the outcome isn't it?, thanks for sharing.