Review: TreeSmart Pencils

Thursdays are my favorite day of the week.  Some people like Saturdays and pancakes, or maybe Friday nights and football.  But Thursday is the best day of my week, because every Thursday I get a free newspaper, and in that newspaper is a crossword puzzle that is neither too difficult nor too easy, which I mull over with some coffee every Thursday morning.  

Nothing ruins a wonderful morning of crossword puzzle time more than a crummy pencil, and so many things can go wrong.  I want a nice sharp point that doesn't crumble, and an eraser that erases cleanly instead of smearing.  Slick surfaces make gripping difficult and take away from my enjoyment.

This is where TreeSmart pencils come in. They are, quite honestly, my new favorite pencils. Not only do they sharpen to a wonderful point, refuse to crumble, erase cleanly, and even have a slight texture making for comfortable gripping, they are made out of recycled paper. 

The process of making them is quite interesting: whole newspaper sheets are rolled around the graphite and carefully glued.  The surface of the pencil is covered in tiny little letters from the newsprint and is quite interesting to look at.

That's right, not only are they the perfect pencil, you are helping the environment!  Let's face it: nobody is going to say they don't care about the environment, but sometimes doing your part can mean inferior or expensive products, or worse, both.  With TreeSmart pencils, you can get the best products AND feel good about it too.

For this review, I received a generous package which included three pencils, one automatic pencil, a tube of miniature colored pencils, a pencil case, and a ruler.  All of the plastic is also recycled!  The pencil case and ruler were both extremely sturdy and I think would hold up very well to an elementary school-aged child.  

The automatic pencil continued the level of quality that the regular pencils had; as a nice bonus, it wasn't round, so it was comfortable to hold and didn't roll away from me.  The eraser is the same type as the regular pencil and erases nice and cleanly with no smearing.

The colored pencils were a big hit with my youngest child, who was thrilled by the adorable size of the pencils and the container they came in.  I feel like this little tube of colored pencils would make an excellent small gift for any child, or maybe as a reward for chores.

Testing them out for myself, I have to say that the colors are very bright and true.  

I colored some Prismacolor pencils next to them for comparison, and I think the TreeSmart pencils outperformed them.


Apparently making an amazing product from recycled materials wasn't enough for TreeSmart.   In addition to using recycled paper and making their products in America, they also offer fundraisers for schools that not only raise an impressive proportion of money for the investment, they also teach the kids about recycling.  

Learn about TreeSmart's Fundraisers Here

In one of the options for fundraising, schools are given the ability to include their students in the process by collecting the newspaper to be made into the pencils they will sell, and TreeSmart sends not only pencils, but activities for learning about pencils and recycling as well.

If you are interested in purchasing their products, they have an online store with even more products to explore and great prices to boot.


TreeSmart's Website
TreeSmart on Facebook

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