Torn Fabric Hair Clip Organizer

This is so not a new idea. It counts as one of those I've-been-meaning-to-make-something-to-help-declutter-for-ages projects. You know the ones. There are so many hair thingy organizer ideas out there that it's really silly to show how I did this one, but I'm going to anyway. 

It started out as a project of old: 

Do you remember when Ali posted her butterfly artwork and everyone went ballistic copying it? Well, this was mine. Although I went a bit over the top with it and it never was completely finished. It's been  been with me at three separate residences now and has never been on the wall. The size is perfect for what I wanted for this current project, so demolish it I did!

Or rather, I cut the hot glue on the back and popped the foam board right out. On one side the foam board is covered with a layer of cork contact paper, then a layer of burlap, and then a million glue dots and butterflies. On the back, it's completely plain. Since I'm using part of a white fitted sheet I've been using up lately (more on that later), the plain white side was perfect.

It was a highly technical process of cutting the fabric a few inches larger than the foam board and stapling the crap out of it into the back.

Which gave me a completely boring white fabric covered piece of foam board. EXACTLY what I wanted.

Many people use ribbon to hold the clips but I wasn't so keen on that. Since it's being hung in our family bathroom I wanted something not too froofy or colorful. I roughly measured 2-3 inch strips (from the tip of my index finger to the second knuckle) of fabric, cut a notch, and tore them to get rough edges.

Then I wrapped the straps around the board at moderately even intervals. Yes, it's a little strange but I boxed up my inner OCD tendencies and just let myself wing it. I figure that some clips are bigger than others so having slightly varied spacing on the strips is actually beneficial to keep it from looking overcrowded.

After placing the strips where I wanted them, I simply stapled them straight into the foam board. My stapler and I had a bit of a disagreement over this but in the end I won and it worked just fine, but I did learn that staples do not like to go through glue dots. 150,000 staples later, the fabric was attached and the whole thing was put back into the frame. It fit snugly, but I like to hot glue it just for good measure.

And just in case you were concerned, this is what the whole mess looks like from the back. Pretty artistic, wouldn't you say?

And the front:

With that giant flower I'm really happy that there is a much larger space there near the bottom. Finally we can find clips when we need them! And I can see that we need to venture out from our favorite feather clips a little.

Things I love:

• The torn fabric strips! I wasn't sure how I would feel about them but I completely adore them. I like the rough edges and the gentle curl they have. I also like how they match the background and keep it really mellow. 
• The varied spacing. This is not normally comfortable for me, but I like it here. It's quite useful.
• The price. F.R.E.E Every single thing in this I already owned. 
• Getting the feather clips off my dresser, the back of the commode, and out of the medicine cabinet. 
• It took like 20 minutes. Serious awesomeness. 

I'd say this one is a winner.