Ribbon Holder - The Hanger

Many people in the crafting business have ribbon- lots of ribbon. If you're like me, you have a TON of ribbon. It creeps up on you. It starts off with one or two needed for a specific project. Then 2 or 3 because you love the color or pattern. Before you know it, you have over 100 spools of ribbon sitting around your house.

This method of ribbon storage is called the hanger because it uses.. well, you guessed it, a hanger. This method was first seen on the Dollar Store Craft site, I think. Or maybe it was Someday Crafts. Either way, it was ingenious.

It's a way that can store over 70 spools of ribbon, easily and within reach, and viewable without taking up a lot of space. For this, though, you do need a very specific hanger- a 5 arm swing arm pants hanger. The photo below shows what the hanger looks like.

This hanger has 4 actual arms (the bottom rung counts as the 5th arm, but it is not a swinging arm, so for our purposes, it only holds 4 arms worth of spools), and those 4 arms are hinged one side, and fit into a slot on the other side. To open them, lift up on the slot side to free it from the slot, then swing the arm open.

Each arm will hold as many as many as 25 narrow spools, or as few as 6-10 wider spools. The size of the spool will also effect how many spools the arms can take- for instance, if the spool is long when laying on it's side, it will effect the size of spool the arm above it can hold.

If you are an avid ribbon buyer, you are probably familiar with different brands, and spool sizes. Hobby Lobby's brand of ribbon found in the fabric department for ribbons sized 1/4" up to 5/8" comes on the same size spool. Some are wider, some narrower, but all the spools will stack on each other in the same size. Those spools are optimal for this ribbon rack.

With 25 on each arm, you can easily fit 100 spools of those spools on the rack, and they will spin freely.

Most other brands of ribbon, such as Offray, will also fit 25 to an arm, but here's the kicker with Offray- the spools are taller, so while you can stack them onto the rack, they will spin more difficultly.

The hanger itself comes in handy. To hang it, pound a nail into the wall, or onto a shelf, and let it hang. Below are some photos from Heather's Frugal Bows of the hanger doing it's job- on this hanger, she shows over 70 spools of varying width ribbons.

So, what's the price to use something like this for your ribbon storage? Well, my local shops didn't have any in stock (I checked Walmart & Meijer), but I did find these hangers online ranging from $4.99 up to $10.00. Not too bad for storing so many spools!

You can find them here:

Hanger City- $5.79
Bed Bath & Beyond, 2 pack for $9.99 (Out of stock online)
Hold N' Storage- $4.99

All in all, it's something to look into! If you have a great idea for storing your ribbon, let me know and I'll write up a post about it, and include a link!