3.26.2012

Organize Your Ribbons & Trims


I know how hard it can be to keep your craft room organized when you have so many creative ideas bouncing around your head.  When my crafting supplies are not organized, I sometimes find myself running up to JoAnn’s or Michaels to buy a bit of ribbon, trim or fabric just because it is too much trouble to rummage through my stuff to find what I need.  Now that is ridiculous! 

So, let’s get organized!  I’m planning a series of posts to help you organize your craft room.


If you are like me, you can’t bear to part with small bits and pieces of ribbons and trims.  You never know when a small piece will be just perfect for an accent.  Until now, my organization method has been tossing the bits in boxes or bags, loosely grouped by color and size.  It has been okay but I knew I could come up with a better system.  So I did a little research on Pinterest and found several ideas including boxes with holes to pull the ribbon out, tic tac containers, pants hangers and dowel systems of all sorts.  Great ideas, but none of these seemed right for my collections of assorted odds and ends.  Finally I found a picture of ribbons wound around a piece of cardboard cut from a packing box.  I tried that one and it certainly did clean up the collection but I still wasn’t satisfied.  
• First of all it really wasn’t very pretty.

•  Second, the way I had to secure the ends with pins was a bit dangerous – I really don’t like pricking my fingers.  

• This led me straight to the perfect solution!  
FOAM CORE!

Neat, organized, easy to see what you have and... 
OH SO PRETTY! 

To cut the foam core, mark with a pencil then
using an X-Acto knife and straight edge,
score along the marked line.
Now "crack" the board, turn it over and
make the final cut.  




I cut a piece of 20” x 30” foam core into 15 pieces each 4” x 10”.  Wound the ribbons around the short side and secure at the top with a pin.  By sticking the pin into the top of the foam core, you’ve added some protection against getting poked by the sharp point.  These boards will now fit perfectly in those fabulously decorative shoe boxes.