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How to make a ribbon storage organizer or rack to hold spools of ribbon 3 different ways. These DIY ribbon holder ideas for your ribbon collection can be made very inexpensively to hang on a wall in a craft or sewing room or in a closet or cabinet as well as a few variations so you can customize each to fit your needs.

DIY Ribbon Storage Organizers To Make for Your Ribbon Collection
Each one of these ribbon organizing ideas has a step-by-step tutorial:
The first is a wall rack that requires a few tools. The second and third do not require any DIY skills or tools to make and can be completed in 30 minutes.
Table Of Contents
Before deciding what DIY ribbon organizer will work best for your ribbon collection read over the ideas in this post, as not every organization method will work for your space or work area.
Think about how you can make the best use with the space you have. If you have a craft table with drawers underneath, this may be and easy and perfect option for you.
For others, use these organization ideas as a creative jumping off point to come up with your own idea to store and organize your rolls of ribbon.

Organizing Ribbon TIPS

Before you get started, here are a few tips about organizing your spools of ribbon no matter what organizing spools of ribbon idea you use.
Choose a Spot – Do you have a room with open wall space where a wall rack will fit?
If not, consider turning a closet into a craft closet where you keep your craft supplies. In this closet you can hang a ribbon rack from the closet shelf or create a smaller holder for a smaller collection of ribbons.
Sort Ribbon – Group every roll of ribbon into categories so you can see just how much ribbon you have and how large the storage organizer should be.
Group the spools by color, then by similarly-sized spools. If you have smaller pieces or scraps of ribbon, these can be placed in old shoe boxes, a basket or tied onto a clothes hanger.
This will allow you to see all the snippets and have easy access to them. Seeing the actual amount of ribbon you have will allow you to see just how large or small your ribbon organizer should be.
Ease of Accessibility – You’ll want to spend some time really thinking about how you create with ribbon.
Do you like to take down spools and have them close by while you’re working? If so, you may want to keep them easily accessible instead of in a closet.

#1: How to Make a Ribbon Organizing Rack to Hang on a Wall
How to Store Ribbons in a Craft Room
When creating this wall mount ribbon rack, I wanted to make use of one of the empty frames on the wall I call my Creative Wall.

I previously used the empty frame you see on the far wall as a mini photo studio in my previous home.
After a trip to the home improvement store where I went to see about using gutters to organize my ribbons, I ended up buying Corrugating 2.38-in x 10-ft Aluminum Drip Edge instead.
I also like that the “drip edge” was inexpensive and white. No paint was needed to make my DIY ribbon rack!

You may be asking – what is aluminum drip edge? It is used to protect roof edges and allows water to go into rain gutters.
It can be found at the Home Depot or Lowes in the gutter aisle. It is usually already painted white, brown, black or silver which saves you any need to paint.

If you plan to make this DIY ribbon storage rack, take tin snips with you when you go to buy a section of aluminum drip edge so you can easily cut the long length of the aluminum drip edge to fit into your car to get it home. Make sure not to cut it shorter than how wide you want your organizer to be.

supplies needed:
Large wood photo frame3 – Corrugating 2.38-in x 10 Aluminum Drip Edge – roofing/gutter aisle in the home improvement storeTin SnipsMeasuring tapePencil14 – 1-1/2″ zinc corner braces with screwsDrill and drill bitLarge brass fastenersPhillips head screwdriverWork glovesOptional: Washi tape to cover ends of cut aluminum drip edge.
I already made the frame that is part of my Creative Wall.  You can read how I created it in this post: Craft Room Idea.
If you don’t want to make a frame you can simply buy any size picture frame at craft stores like Michaels and hang it on your wall.
I cut the aluminum drip edge into 7 pieces to create 7 shelves that fit inside the frame for my ribbon organizer.
Once the frame is hung on wall (no glass or mat, just the frame), measure the inside width of the frame. This width will be the measurement you will need to cut the aluminum drip edge.

Put on work gloves (the aluminum drip edge does have sharp edges) and use tin snips to cut the aluminum drip edge to the width needed.  If your tin snips are sharp, cutting through the aluminum is very easy. I drew a pencil line where I needed to cut and then cut into the drip edge from one side, and then flipped it around to cut in from the other side to meet the first cut. My cuts were not perfectly square so you don’t have to be exact.

2. Place a corner brace as shown above on the outside of one of the cut pieces of drip edge and mark hole closet to edge on corner brace onto aluminum drip edge. Repeat on opposite end. Drill holes where pencil marks are.
Place corner braces around L-shape of aluminum drip edge and line up holes. Place a large brass fastener in hole.

3. Bring tips of brass fastener to inside of drip edge and then spread out to secure. Add a drop of glue over center of opened fastener. Repeat on all other cut sections.

Each cut to size shelf should have two corner braces attached. One on each end.

Optional: I left the cut edges of my ribbon organizing shelves alone, but the cut edges can be sharp. If you want to cover the edges, add some colorful Washi tape over each edge before hanging the shelves on the wall.
How to Attach Ribbon Organizing Rack to a Wall

Starting at the bottom of the frame, begin attaching the metal shelves to the wall by screwing in the other side of each corner brace into the wall with screws.
You may have to bend the front of the shelf out a bit, but this is OK to do since when you place the ribbon in, the spools will push the front out also.

I attached the bottom shelf so it sits on the frame. When the ribbon spools are placed on the shelf, the metal will bend out slightly. This creates a angled view and secure fit for the spools of ribbon.

Arrange your ribbons by the size of the spool before screwing the shelves to the wall. For the spacing of my ribbon organizer shelves, I placed the largest spools of ribbon I had on the the bottom shelf.
I needed 5″ of clearance for these ribbons. I placed the next two shelves up 5″ apart. For the rest of the shelves I spaced them at 4″ to 4-1/2″ apart.

Use a bubble level to make sure the shelves are level as you attach them to the wall.

Place ribbons in shelves by size and or color.  Some of the spools don’t touch the bottom of the shelf, but they are all secure and easy to get to now.
The best part though is that they are now not only organized by color, but easily accessible and beautiful ribbon is pretty to look at.
#2: How To Make a Ribbon Organizer to Hang in a Closet or Wall
This is a very easy and creative idea to store craft ribbon, curling gift wrap ribbon or anything that is on a spool in a craft storage closet.
Making this style organizer can be completed in about 30 minutes.

supplies needed:
2 equal lengths of large link chain2- large S HooksCafe style curtain rods or metal rods – at least 27″ long.Optional: Rubber bands – 2 for each rodVariation: 2 eye-hooks to screw into a ceiling or wood shelf if you don’t have wire grid shelving shown in the photo.Item Six

After figuring out how many curtain rods and length of chain you will need, hang chain from closet shelf about 27″ apart using an S-hook for each side. Variation: For a wood closet shelf – use a screw-in style S-hook to attach to the underside of the shelf.

3. Thread the spools of ribbon onto a curtain rod.

4. Next, slide a curtain rod through the chain on one side and repeat with the other side of the rod on the other chain. Make sure to count the chain links down from the top for each rod so the rods will be level across.
5. Repeat for each rod and amount of ribbon you have.

Optional: Do you like to cut off just the amount of ribbon you will need before you start your project? If so:
Hang a pair of scissors with ribbon and tie onto the chain on one side of this hanging ribbon organizer. Place a yardstick at the bottom of the chains in the same way you added the curtain rods. Wrap a rubber band around the finial end on rod if rod moves back and forth. This can happen on rods that are not full.
Variation on this Ribbon Storage Organizer
If you want a more finished look for your ribbon organization, you can use a frame instead of chains to hold the rods as I did to hold gift wrap.

You can learn how to make this framed organizer in this post:

#3 Ribbon Storage Inside a Cabinet 0r Cupboard
Of the 3 ribbon storage ideas shown in this post, this one is the easiest and doesn’t require any DIY skills or tools.
For smaller ribbon collections and loose ribbon, you can use spring-mounted tension curtain rods that have rubber tips. A tension rod’s length can be easily adjusted by twisting the rod snug against the insides of a cabinet.
4 tension rods holding spools of ribbon in a cabinet.
Before I made my wall mounted ribbon organizer that I shared earlier in this post. I use to store the spools of ribbon I had in my crafts cabinet on cafe style tension curtain rods that you see in the photo.

All you need to make this ribbon organizer is a spring-mount tension rod. This style of rod is sold anywhere window treatments are sold.

They come is different lengths from short to long. If you have a large cabinet, you could even use a spring-mount shower rod.
Pros: The nice thing about this ribbon organization idea is that the ribbons are up and off the shelf so you can still store supplies and items on the shelf underneath the rolls of ribbon.
Cons: The only downfall is that when a spool in the center of the rod becomes empty, you will have to take the rod down to remove all the other ribbons on one side of it to remove and replace it.

FAQs About Storing Ribbon

How to Keep Ribbon From Unrolling?
To keep the ends of the ribbon on each roll in place, use a straight pin or a small piece of tape to keep it in place.

How Do You Organize Ribbon Scraps?
There are many ways to organize ribbon scraps. Placing them in a shoebox or basket is the easiest. Inside you could place the scraps by color into food storage bags.
Another way is to tie the ribbon scraps to a coat hanger or a slack hanger that can hold multiple pairs of pants – (see below). You can tie the ribbon on by color and be able to slide them back and forth along the hanger. This will make organizing the ribbon scraps by color easy.
A third way would be to tie the ribbon scraps to key rings. Have a key ring for each color and then hang the rings on a wall hook.

How to Organize Ribbon in a Drawer
To easily organize rolls of ribbon in a drawer is to use sheets of dollar store foam boards to make drawer dividers. You can also buy pre-made drawer dividers to fit your drawer. Adding these will keep the rolls in line by color, size or however you would like them organized for how you work and accessibility.

Ready Made Ribbon Storage Organizers

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