Pens they can't steal...

[kindarana]

Putting giant flowers on pens and then wrapping them in floral tape is great for Girl Scouts. I teach Earth Science and Life Science to middle schoolers and have been losing pens by the fistful; the hope is that with a giant flower on top the kids might not steal them.

Any ideas on what else I could use to make my pens obviously mine? I was thinking of using the really light Crayola foam clay to make fake rock toppers.

I also have some rotate-the-bottom mechanical pencils that I'd want to decorate too, but I want to keep the eraser top accessible. Maybe fringe?

[Craft Forums]

[goddesshanna]

i used to work in a gas station where they had taped a plastic spoon to the top of the pen with masking tape. i never saw anyone accidentally pocket that one. maybe you could do something a bit more pretty but along the same lines?

[quornflour]

I worked at a place that had pens that said "I stole this pen from **" ** - fill in business name, they figured that at least if they got stolen it was PR...
I guess that is not really applicable in this situation though...

Just make sure what ever you attach to them is not so cool that they walk because you have the coolest pens.

[merrydeath]

i could see that being a pitfall. on the plus side, everyone who saw someone with one of your supercool pens would know where they got it. i used to paint my pencils (the bic lead pencils) with nail polish or glue little sparklie things on them. it was like, everyone knew they were mine, but some still got ganked. i just made sure to loan out the less pretty ones. lol.

[stella]

buy cheap pens? that's what we did when i worked at the bookstore at my school. we bought decent pens for the offices, but for the checkout counters we just bought boxes of the cheapest pens available. that way when people do walk off with them, it's no big loss, and people never purposefully take them because they're uncomfortable and crappy.

other places at school wrap a half-piece of paper around the top of the pen so it sticks out 6 inches. it's annoying enough that you don't wander off with the pen, but light and doesnt make it harder to write.

i kind of hate places that tape big fake flowers or knicknacks to their pens, because it makes it hard to write, even just to sign a check.

[delqc]

other places at school wrap a half-piece of paper around the top of the pen so it sticks out 6 inches.

I was going to suggest this - making simple flags with paper that stuck off the top which said "This pen belongs to .....". You could do it in neon orange paper if you wanted to make them really unappealing. And that shouldn't affect how one writes with them!

[micrafty]

Find some really sticky tape (maybe duct), the stuff where the glue remains when the tape is removed. Put your name or something on the tape - once your theif/s figure out they are stuck with your name or a sticky mess, they might stop.

Sounds like if you make something attractive with the flowers and they will be just too tempting for the little devils, uhm, I mean darlings.