Ballpoint Pen Monsters!

These fun monster pen toppers are a quick and easy craft that's perfect for personalizing. Kids love putting crazy faces on them, or choosing hair that matches theirs so they can have a mini-me monster! They make great little gifts, party favors, back-to-school accessories, or stocking stuffers. The monsters are such a cute way to dress up a plain ballpoint pen, and since only the cap is decorated, you can still write with it like normal, and swap out the pen if it runs out of ink.

You could use hot glue for this, but if you’re making this craft with kids, I have to insist that you use some kind of cold glue. Your fingers are going to be right up in there! I tested nine different kinds of glue for this project, and I liked Beacon Power-Tac the best. It tacks while it's wet and sticks well once its dry, plus you won’t burn your fingers, so yaaaaay.

(This Instructable contains affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission on purchases made through these links, at no extra cost to you.)

Here's what you need to make the pen monsters:

• A ballpoint pen with a removable cap (I'm using Bic Stic M)
• Four spools of sewing thread (I like using 4 different shades of the same bright color, but you do you!)
• A credit card or other stiff card of a similar size
• Glue-on googly eyes (The 4, 5, and 6mm sizes all work great for this project)
• Glue (I tried nine different glues and settled on Beacon Power-Tac)
• Scissors
• A pair of pliers that will cut the end off a pen cap

Choose four spools of thread, and put them in a bowl so they don’t roll all over the place as you’re unwinding them. Gather up the thread ends from all four spools at once, and wrap the bundle of four threads 75 times around the shorter width of the credit card. Now cut the spools loose.

Take a piece of thread about 3 feet (1 meter) long and fold it in half, and then in half again, so that you have a quadrupled length of thread. Slide the quadrupled thread in between the thread wraps and the credit card, and tie it tightly around the thread wraps.

Now slide the thread bundle off of the credit card. If the thread is wrapped so tightly that it doesn’t want to slide, just bend the card a little bit with your thumb like I’m doing in the picture, and it will slide right off.

If you're the adult, remove the end of the pen cap using the cutting pliers. If you're a kid, go get an adult to cut the end off the pen cap. Cut off just the tip, because you need most of the cap intact.

Pinch the thread bundle where you tied the quadrupled piece of thread. Fold the tail ends of the quadrupled threads up into the bundle with the rest of the thread. Put some glue on the pinched end of the thread bundle, and push the thread bundle into the pen cap. You can give the bundle a twist if you need some help getting it into the pen cap. Don't push it too far inside, because you need some room for the point of the pen to go when you put the cap on the pen later.

When the glue is dry, cut through the thread loops at the top, so that you have strands of hair.

The next step is to add a face! Use some generous dabs of glue to attach the googly eyes to the pen cap. It's a good idea to wipe off the pen cap and the back of the eyes with rubbing alcohol first, to make sure that there is no grease or anything on the surface that would interfere with the bond of the glue.

I usually set one eye to each side of the pocket clip, so that it looks like the clip is the monster’s nose. But you can add a different number of eyes, or give your monster more facial features, if you want to.

Try adding a mustache (like the blue monster has) or eyebrows (like I gave the pink monster) using a little extra thread and glue. Grab a small bundle of thread, and wrap a drop of glue around the bundle. Apply it to your monster's face, let it dry, and then trim the mustache or eyebrows to your liking.

Your monster needs a fun and funky hairstyle! As it is, the monster's hair will stand straight up. To further customize your monster, you can braid the hair, trim it, or use a blast of hairspray to give it a crazy look.

The purple monster has pigtails that are tied up with extra pieces of thread.

The yellow monster's hair was trimmed shorter.

The blue monster has a messy, raggedy haircut, which matches the crazy mustache to a T!

The pink monster is the only one wearing hairspray. I sprayed the hair, and then wrapped a spare piece of thread a couple of times around the pink monster's head to hold the hair down while it dried.

The green monster can't decide on a hairstyle... it goes back and forth between braids, a Mohawk, and regular stick-up-straight hair.

And there you have it! A cute little pen topper that makes a great back-to-school craft, rainy day project, stocking stuffer, or party favor. Have fun with your monsters! Be sure to take them to the park every now and then. They like the slides the best.