The Pin Wheel

• This is probably the grandfather of all pencil top art. It has been around for almost as long as the pencil. You start out with a four inch square piece of paper or construction paper. Color or decorate to your liking. Fold in half, corner to corner, making a triangle. Flatten out and do the same in the other direction. Cut along those creases from the corner of the paper to about an inch from the center. Bring every other corner to the center and stick a pin through and then through the eraser of your pencil to create your pin wheel. Blow on it or run with it to make your wheel turn.
  
  

The Top Hat Man

• You will need a few props for this project. At the craft store, look some very small eyes that have some kind of adhesive on the back. Take your pencil, and with a marking pen, paint the eraser black. Cut a round piece of black construction paper about three quarters of an inch round. Cut a hole in the center of it about the size of the eraser, so it fits tightly over the eraser. Slide the black round over the eraser to make a top hat. Stick the eyes on, and using your black marker, draw a moustache to make your Top Hat Man.
  
  

Pipe Cleaner Flowers

• Use some colorful pipe cleaners to create a flower. Use green for the leaves and different colors for the flower. The wood part of the pencil becomes the stem and the eraser is the center of the flower. Use different color cleaners to make different color flowers by bending the pipe cleaners into flower shapes and sticking the wire from the pipe cleaners into the eraser. Some businesses use a variation on this process so people don't accidentally walk off with their writing tools.
  
  

Puppets

• Pencil top crafts can be as simple as drawing a small picture of a person and gluing it to a pencil. Make several different people and create your own puppet show to help tell a story. Cut pictures out of magazines and glue them to cardboard for support. Use a thumb tack to attach the puppet to a pencil eraser or you can simply use tape.