Turning a coat hanger into a ribbon organiser

Ok guys so as you've probably noticed, I've been a bit absent lately. Part of it is trying to keep on top of the various bugs that Miss K keeps picking up (she has a cold at the moment which is just so much fun), part of it is that exam season is coming up quickly and I am madly trying to make sure I'm ready for my one and only exam for the year, and part of it is that I am starting to feel stuck in a rut as far as this blog goes. While I am sure you guys all love hearing my various anecdotes about Miss K and the cute things she does, I get the feeling I'm becoming one of those annoying people who has nothing to talk about except for their children.

So with that in mind, I have decided to try something a bit different for the blog today. Instead of just blabbing on and on about my day (which was just so boring to live through I don't feel mean enough to make all of you go through it too) I have decided to do a quick tutorial instead. Now for anyone here who doesn't care about crafty things, I do apologize for you might find this all a bit dull. But if that is the case, feel free to skip down to the bottom of the page and drop me a line in the comments saying so. I can only guess what you guys like about my blog since you are all such a quiet bunch, so today's guess is that you want to learn how to turn an every day item like a coat hanger into a nifty way to organize your ribbons. I'm starting really simple because I am new to this whole telling people what to do thingy, and I wanted to make sure this first tutorial would be both easy to write and easy to read. So here goes.

Ooh it even comes with it's own intro picture, how exciting...

Now for any of you lovely people out there who are crafty and like scrapbooking, or card making or anything else where you use lots of ribbons, you will know how annoying it can be trying to find an effective way to store your ribbons so that they don't become tangled and messy. I know that before I stumbled on this idea I had tried several different methods. There are professionally made boxes complete with dowels and holes for you to hang and thread your ribbons through, but they usually come with a price tag that is way outside of my budget of free or cheaper, so I have always had to get creative with ways to sort and store my lovely ribbons. My first ribbon holder was a plastic bag. That was terrible. On a scale of one to ten for ease of use and neatness, a plastic bag gets a zero. So I swapped to a plastic container which was slightly better, at least now I could see all of my ribbons at a glance, but they still got tangled too much. 

See? terrible.

So when I stumbled on a picture somewhere of someone using a trouser hanger as a ribbon organiser I got super excited. Until I realised how very little the people in my town must use coat hangers because I couldn't find a multi rack coat hanger for love or money. Luckily I eventually found one at Kmart and forked out a whole $5 for it. 

Now the first thing you want to do is gather all of your supplies. (I've always wanted to start a sentence like that. It sounds so tutorial-y)And now here is the obligatory picture of all of my supplies gathered into the one space for ease of use.

Ta-daa! Look at all that gathered-ness

Now if you are super OCD like I am, you can take this time to sort your ribbons into categories. I know, who knew ribbons could have categories! 

There is a sight that just makes my compulsive side sing.

And then it is just as simple as threading the ribbon spools onto the coat hanger in any way that you please. 

It couldn't be easier if it was thought up by a one year old...

And before you know it you will have a lovely coat hanger covered in spools of ribbon that you can now hang up anywhere that you like.

See? No more tangled ribbons and it even looks pretty. 

I even have heaps of room left over just in case I decide to go out and buy more ribbons. Not bad for $5 and ten minutes of work. (It would have been quicker but I had to keep stopping to take pictures of it for you guys.) And now just to make it really look like a professional tutorial, here is a before and after shot of my ribbons. 

So there you have it, a tutorial on how to turn an ordinary every day boring coat hanger into something awesome for your crafting area. I hope that this was as enjoyable for you guys to read as it was for me to write, if it wasn't please, please, please let me know. Also feel free to tell me what you guys do want to see on here, because I can't entertain you if I don't know what you like. 

*update, this blog post has now been linked to A Bowl Full of Lemon's One project at a time link party, check it out for other awesome bloggers with even bigger and better things to share.