Friday

Simple Ribbon Storage Solution - Organising My Home


I have been trying to get a good storage solution for keeping ribbons and strings etc. for the last few years.   You would think it was easy to find a simple solution for ribbon storage but rolls of ribbon are likely to move in different positions and then the ribbon becomes loose and that annoys me.






I had been searching Pinterest and Ebay and Amazon for all the different boxes and rails that are out there to buy and to make.


Here are a few of the ideas I had found and some I actually tried.


Plastic Storage box

This is the type of plastic container that my spools of ribbon had originally been in





but they always moved about and un-wrapped in this.




The Bekvam Spice racks from Ikea 


These were recommended by various bloggers.
Screen Shot 


I could not really consider this even though they are very cheap because I did not have wall space in my study (at an easily accessible height).



Thin Dowel Rods

Many people have made up something themselves using thin dowel rods to slot the rolls of ribbon along so I considered that because maybe it would have been possible to connect to something already in the study.

I didn't really have anywhere I could use for the dowel idea.

But....





This led on to thinking if it was possible to come up with an idea to attach something from one side of my wicker & metal shelving unit underneath the shelves.


However  in the end I decided this was not a viable solution either.



Pringles Cans / Postage tubes

Some people are very creative and made ribbon containers from tubes.

And I did happen to have a few of these in the house so this was considered ....





until I decided that it was too much effort to cut it down along the length of it and then paper it or paint it or somehow to decorate it.

Plus the biggest downside to this was that some ribbon spools are quite large and I didn't have a tube wide enough and the spools I had were different diameters, so some might move around inside.



Drawers with Ribbon Cards

This also seemed to be a very popular idea but I just could not understand why.

Perhaps I was just too lazy to 
  • take my ribbons off the round spools they were on,
  • cut pieces of cardboard to a certain size
  • then wind the ribbons round the square or rectangular pieces of card
  • and place them upright in a drawer
Plus I didn't have a free drawer to do that.

(Probably could have used a box but as I said - too lazy!)




Several years ago I had seen these black and white boxes which were designed specifically for storing ribbon.






I love black & white and I love boxes and I decided I could buy a few of these and they would stack on top of each other and not take up too much space in the Craft Armoire


Well that is true enough they were easy to stack together not taking up too much room but after a few times lifting the boxes out and in to use the ribbon I had discovered there was a slight problem with them and it became an annoying problem




The wider, firmer ribbons were okay.

But...

The narrow ribbons and the wide flimsy ribbons would not stay in place.

They partly unwrap and slide back out of the slit along the long side of the box so that each time the box has to be opened and some of the ribbons slotted through again.

This is a bigger problem in another box with more of the narrower ribbons and also in the box in which I tried to keep some coloured string & cord.

So that was why I was looking for some other way to store my ribbon, however I was reluctant to have to pay very much after having already paid for these boxes.

But none of the ideas I saw were going to work for me.



Then just last week I had an idea ....

Even though many pictures I had seen showed that crafters were putting pins in their ribbons to stop the unwrapping when their spools were on shelves or on rods, I also did not want to be pinning and unpinning ribbon all the time

But ...

I could stick the ribbon instead!

Yes one of my favourite crafting things is double sided tape.

So

First I took the ribbon out of the box








Then out with the double sided tape and cut a piece the same length as the slit along the box and stick it on just below the slit




and peel off the tape




return the ribbons and press each one down against the tape.





The ribbons are held there nicely against the box and will not roll back into the box again or unwrap themselves.







Now each time I want some ribbon I can
  • pull the ribbon away from the tape, 
  • measure a length,
  • cut the ribbon and
  • press it down against the tape again.



Here is another box with the tape applied and you can see it holds the string as well.




Now I don't need to take up any more space than I already had with the boxes.


Simple Solution Found 


      



and it was basically at no extra cost and only a little bit of time involved.








FUNWORK  not  HOUSEWORK for this task definitely as this was such an easy solution.