Disclaimer: We have partnered with Painters Paint Pens to bring you this post. All opinions and photography are our own and are not influenced by Painters. Thank you for supporting the brands that help support this blog. 

We hate to say it, but it’s just about that time. Ya know, that time when the aisles of almost any big box store turn into an office supply lovers dream come true. AKA back-to-school shopping.

As much as we dread the end of summer, we both secretly love back-to-school time. These A+ students were the first in line to check off all of the items on our class supply lists and were both way too excited to get these colorful items home and start LABELing.  <— anyone else spend the night before the first day of school color coding and sharpening?!

Well, we think it’s this same excitement that has us giddy to start decorating Grace’s Dorm room in about a month. We have been hard at work making to-do lists, assigning DIY projects to the soon-to-be roomies, and even creating a few of our own personalized touches to ensure these girls have the perfect place to call home away from home.

One of the simple projects we recently tackled involved…. you guessed it…. school supplies. {insert ear to ear smiles here}. This is our take on Personalized Office Supplies for ANY trendy desk or office.
We want to make sure her supplies/desk is just as fun, stylish, and inspiring as she is so we picked up this pink stapler and fine tip Painters paint pen (available at many retailers including Walmart, Meijer, and for a limited time, Target) and got to work.

That’s seriously all you need for this project…

• Stapler (or other stylish desk accessory)
• Paint Pen

Step 1: Literally, all you have to do is write the message of your choice on the top of the stapler. The fine tip paint pen is super smooth to write with and eliminates the need to have to trace any of the letters (decreasing your chance to mess-up).

Step 2: Since it’s paint, it’s important that you let your letters dry for a few hours.

Once the paint is dry, it’s time to… DO WORK! How adorable is this personalized stapler?! We hope it brings Grace a smile and a little extra inspiration while she’s pulling all-nighters getting that paper done before her 8:00am class on! (Oh the joys of college life)
The paint pen literally makes it easy to write whatever you want (and as small as you want, which is a huge plus). We think this could be a SUPER easy craft to monogram for a classy look, personalize for a new teacher gift, or for our college girls tuning in… we see sorority letters all over this bad boy. Heck, we were so inspired with the ease of this project that we decided to try our hand at another paint pen project.

We picked up the decorative wood divided tray. The best part of writing on wood with paint pens is that you can lightly “sketch” your design and just trace it using the paint pens. We didn’t stay on the exact line we sketched but you can’t even tell, which we appreciate! #perfectlyimperfect 

Now Grace will have a stylish “catch all” tray to put on her desk…a home for a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and everything in between.

And last but certainly not least– a stylish, DIY pencil holder for Grace’s desk.

We used a large tip, gold Painter Pen this time and added a few simple circles to each side of the pencil holder. This simple design + bright color combo totally reminds us of a Kate Spade inspired desk accessory…. without the Kate Spade price tag <– love that (especially for those on a college budget).
If you can color in a circle, you can recreate this look — we promise!!

Now that we can get our hands on every office supply known to man almost any store, we just may have to whip out these paint pens and create a whole set of desk decor for Grace. We have ONE MONTH until the reveal so we’re pretty sure it’s now our turn to…. DO WORK.

Speaking of DOING WORK… Painters is having a monthly DIY contest between now and December, and a monthly winner gets a prize valued at $500!  August’s theme is home decor, or you can be ahead of the curve (you teacher’s pet you!) and tackle an office or school item for the September theme. For more details, check out their website and share your creations on social media using #StyleByAisle & #PaintersStyle. Happy Crafting!