Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Clippie Keeper Cup

Today, I drove into Lansing so I could get a few things. Namely, I had gone through almost all of my 100 alligator clips I had picked up just last week. I have a problem- the first step is admitting it. When I think about it, though, it is pretty easy to go through them. When I make clippies, I almost always do 4 pairs that are in similar colors or styles, so they 'match', and I'm doing between 2 & 4 sets of 4 pairs each day, so... you do the math.

I wanted to buy more ribbon today. However, the ribbon was not on sale at Jo-Ann's, Hobby Lobby, or Michaels. Disappointing! I did grab a few of the $1 spools at Michaels, and found 6 or 7 spools on clearance for $.50 each at JoAnn's.

While I was at Michaels, I found little round, tall containers with lids- my first thought was a Clippie container! I picked up just 2 to start, but LOVE what I came up with.

Lately, my hair stuff has ranged towards just small clippies- fully lined alligator clips with minimal, and small decorations on them, or plain if the ribbon was already decorated. Something more for every day use than big old bows and what not.

My initial thought for the cup was that it would store a ton of clippies (and it does- I was able to store 50 individual small clippies in 1 cup, each decorated). My next thought was adding decoration to it, and making it look like a ribbon wrapped present. That, of course, led me to thinking- the ribbon can be used as storage, the same as a bow hanger!

So, that's what I did tonight. I took 2 lengths of ribbon, glued & folded the ends over to make a nice clean edge, then glued them to the cup- first along the bottom of the cup, then to the inside, so that the ribbon running up the side is not glued to the cup- clippies can be clipped onto them.

Totals for this project-

Cup- $1
Ribbon- $.25 (give or take)
Glue- Like what, $.10?

All in all, it was cheap to make. I have my first one up for sale in my Etsy shop, along with some of my clips.

3 comments:

Pati @ A Crafty Escape said...

Heather, what a neat idea! Your clippies are so cute!

MIDWEST MAMA said...

How nice that you had a trip to the big city! Michaels is a crafters heaven!

Expressions by Heather said...

I usually prefer Hobby Lobby, but I love some of the stuff MIchaels has. They have some more unique items than HobLob has.

Thanks everyone!