Make this! Wooden pencil holder diy with gym rings

I recently discovered a loads of different sized gym rings lying around. When I buy crafting materials, I tend to over-buy and then forget about them. Are you the same?

I decided it was time to do something with these beautiful wooden circles and came up with the idea of a wooden pencil holder diy. As I had gym rings in different sizes, I also made some smaller trinket trays for paper clips and for other small bits that you keep on a desk.

I did consider painting my pencil holder and mini desk organisers white, but then I decided to leave it natural as I love the look of natural wood. You can of course paint them any colour you like. Here’s how to make the wooden pencil holder diy.

Wooden pencil holder diy + mini desk organisers

*contains affiliate links

Materials (per pencil holder):
8 small gym rings
popsicle craft sticks* (US readers find it here)
wood glue (US readers here)
craft knife
scissors

1. Measure, mark and cut your popsicle sticks to make the base. The best way to cut these is to score cut lines several times with a sharp craft knife and then snip off using strong scissors.

Note: There are other ways to make the base like cutting a circle from thick card or cork. I used popsicle sticks for the pen holder as they’re strong and will take the weight of heavy stuff like scissors. For the shallower trays though, I used thick card since they’re holding things light things like paper clips and washi tape. If you have power tools, you could even cut circles from thin plywood.

2. Glue the cut popsicle sticks to the base of one of the gym rings. Leave to dry as per the instructions on the glue.

3. Glue the rest of the gym rings on top of each other – I left each layer to dry for about 15 minutes before I glued on the next layer. Leave to dry.

I then used various different sized gym rings to make some mini desk organisers to go with the wooden pencil holder. The shallower ones are great for holding little things like tape, paper clips and pin tacks.

Depending on the size of the rings you get, you can create all kinds of containers for all kinds of stuff. You could get slightly bigger rings, slip in a slim glass/ plastic container and turn it in to a small wooden vase for instance. Or go for XL rings and make a kitchen utensil holder.