Mini Colored Pencils

     Here's the next installment in my miniseries (pun courtesy of Brian).

Materials:
*Toothpicks
*Box cutter or other reasonably sharp cutting tool
*Emory board or sandpaper
*Full size colored pencils
*Paint
*Paintbrush

Directions:
*Cut a toothpick in half using a box cutter or other cutting implement.  Scissors work too, but I didn't like the way they squished the wood around the cut site.  The two halves can be used to make two mini colored pencils.
*If the end of the pencil is a bit jagged after cutting, file it down with an Emory board or sandpaper.
*Paint the pencil the color that you would like it to be, leaving the pointed tip unpainted.  Set aside to dry.  I like painting the whole pencil rather than painting one side and letting it dry, then comping back to paint the other and I found that Perler fuse bead crafts are a good way to handle this.  You just paint the toothpick except for both ends and then stick the pointed end in one of the holes in the fuse bead creation.  You then carefully paint the end that is now sticking up in the air.
*Once the pencil is dry, color the very tip using a colored pencil.  You could also paint the tip, which is what I found I had to do for the white one to get the color to show up.