With the advent of the Blendabilities, my Blender Pens sort of took a back seat. Some of them had been going dry but I never bothered to try to refill them although I’d heard and read many times that it can be done. Now, when interacting with my customers, there are no Blendabilities so I decided to bite the bullet and try to revitalize my (six) Blender Pens before purchasing a fresh set.
I looked at several (like 5-6) recipes for refilling the pens and this is the one I selected since it seemed to be pretty much like all the others.
2 teaspoons Glycerin
4 teaspoons Distilled* Water
1/4 teaspoon Isopropyl, Denatured or Rubbing Alcohol**
Mix all ingredients together and place them in a small glass container. I used a one cup Pyrex measuring cup.
You can pull out the tips of the pens with pliers or tweezers. Put the tips of the pens in the solution and let them soak for about 5 minutes. Put the tips back into the blender pens and you’re good to go.
OR
If you’d like your efforts to last longer, you can take your blender pen apart and refill the fiber shaft. This is the most effective way of refilling the pen because it lasts longer. Gently remove the tip with tweezers and set it aside.
Supposedly you can tap, tap, tap, tap, tap the pen on your work surface and a white plastic-covered, fiber-filled tube will come out. I saw this tube come near the tip end but it would not come all the way out so I gently dripped bits of the Glycerin mixture into the pen shaft until no more mixture would go in. I don’t know if that was due to an air bubble or fullness. No, I did not burp it! 🙂
Use an eye dropper to drip the mixture into the pen shaft. We actually had a veterinary syringe, for feeding meds to one of our cats, in a drawer, and that’s what I used.
*You must use Distilled Water since it has no impurities. Tap water will cause your pens to become moldy inside. Yuck!
**The alcohol types mentioned above are each just about the same as the other. Check out this resource. Bottom line: “Rubbing alcohol is a generic term that can be either denatured alcohol or isopropyl alcohol.”
I waited a few days after filling my Blender Pens before using them just to let them settle down with their new fluids. I also have ordered a new package of pens so I can honestly compare my refilled older pens with a new set. I must say that the refilled pens took the ink and colored very smoothly on the Whisper White card stock I’ve used for this set of cards.
I’ll post the finished cards in a few days. I have a ton of other tasks to complete today before assembling my cards. Plus I have to decide which combination of sassy funny phrases for the gal to be shouting out!
Have a great day.
