Handmade Clip-It Up System

I was so thrilled to see the comments left about my ribbon organization, especially about the rain gutters! When I was teaching, I used the rain gutters to store children's books, and loved it, so now that I'm on disability (because of my foot) I just recycled them for my ribbon. I love to reuse stuff in new ways!

A few years ago, the Clip It Up system came out, which was a round, three-tiered rotating embellishment organizer. The idea was to clip up your embellishments and make them easier to access. It looked really cool, but it was soooo expensive! I never got one. My embellishments seem to be multiplying like rabbits and I am finding that Out of Sight is NEVER USED, at my house. So I was desperate to find a way to display some of my embellishments, so that I could see them, but also keep them out of the way.

One afternoon I was at Craft Warehouse and I saw the clip it up clips on clearance! I bought a bag to try them out. I did NOT have the clip it up organizer and I was stumped about how to use them. I thought and thought and finally decided to hang a ribbon under one of my shelves and hang the clips off of that. It worked! I could see and access my embellishments so easily! Unfortunately there were drawbacks to my creation....
1.) I had more embellishments than clips
2.) The embellishments were heavier than the ribbon and the ribbon started to sag.
3.) Craft Warehouse had sold out of the clips, so I couldn't get anymore

What to do? I left it as it was for a while, and thought and thought some more. One afternoon, I went to meet a friend of mine from one of my online scrapbooking groups. I went to see her scrapbooking room and found a solution to my problem! My clever friend had bought a wall shelf about 2 feet wide and her husband had drilled a hole in each end underneath the shelf and bolted an all-thread wire through it. She used paperclips and metal washers to create hooks where she hung up her embellishments. Immediately my mind started reeling and I took a picture and then hollered at my husband to come and see what my friend had made. I am very blessed to have a husband who can make and/or fix ANYTHING!
He looked at the system and said he could easily make one for me.

The next day I went to the Goodwill to look for a shelf. I am a NINJA SHOPPER according to my kids, and I found not one, but TWO shelves for a total of $3.95!! I was so excited, I called my husband to tell him the good news. He praised my frugal shopping and then told me that he found something at his work that he was going to rig up to hold my all-thread and embellishments. He is very creative when making stuff to help me out, so I knew it would be awesome. I couldn't let the shelves go to waste, so I put them up on the wall and put some of my Disney toys on them. My scrapboom is decorated with Disney toys which keeps it kid and scrapbooker friendly! I have 5 kids + 1 more who is living with us right now and so I need things as kid friendly as possible!

Later that week my wonderful husband came home with this stand-up frame that had 3 rows of the all thread on it! WOW! It was incredible! It also had room to add at least one more strip of the all-thread! I was so excited that I started working on adding my embellishments to it!

My friend had shown me how to take pliers and open up the paperclip, hang the washer on the paperclip and then wind it around itself using the pliers to hold it together. Then she took a mini clothespin and wound the other end of the paperclip around the threading on the paperclip. Then she slid the washer onto the all-thread and clipped her embellishment on the clothespin. Time consuming, but incredible! I am so blessed to have such clever family and friends!

I started to open up paperclips and hook the washers on them. It was a lot of work and if the paperclip was old, it would break, which started to make me frustrated. I found that by opening up the paperclip slightly, I could slide the washer onto it without opening the paperclip completely. This saved me a lot of time and frustration! I didn't have mini clothespins, but I did have the clip it up clips, so I just hung the clips onto the closed paperclip and WALLAH, I had my own clip it up hangar! It didn't take long to run out of the clips, so I started looking around for something else to use. I found those plastic clips that you use to hold reports and other thick documents together. I had a bunch, so I tried them...without much effort I slid each clip onto the other end of the paperclip! I slid the washers onto the all-thread and hung my embellishments on them! I LOVE IT! My wonderful husband is going to add some wheels to the bottom of it so that I can wheel it around which will make it even more perfect! I can see my embellishments a lot easier and am using them more frequently now! Another organizational idea discovered and implemented!

Please leave me a comment (I love comments), and let me know what you think about this idea~ Thanks for stopping by and come back soon! You never know what you might discover! Have a scrappy day!