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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

DIY Fabric Bolts {Tutorial}


My fabric was a MESS...
I had all my fabric in these cube organizers:
The problem was that I couldn't see all of it at once, so I'd end up digging through it and creating a mess. At one point it was all folded nicely, but it quickly turned into a case of it just being shoved into the cubes.

Then I saw this: 




Foam posterboard was used to create mini fabric bolts to organize this fabric. Genius! 


I'm all about using what I have, though, and I didn't have any foam posterboard around. So what else do I have a lot of that I could use? Diaper boxes! They're great boxes, so I have a hard time throwing them away. So, I gathered a couple up (I also had a wipes box).
I broke down the box, so I could lay it out flat.
Since I have little hands that would pull fabric off shelves, I decided I still wanted to keep my fabric in the cubes, so I measured the cubes. Then I measured and drew lines on the boxes to create pieces of cardboard that would fit in the cubes. I just used a ruler and a Sharpie to create the lines.
It's at this point that I took a break to run to the store or something, and when I got back to working on the project, the sun was down. Soooo...we're missing a couple pictures here, but I'm sure you can use that imagination. :-)

I cut along the lines I had drawn to create my cardboard pieces.

Then, since I didn't use that pretty foam posterboard, I wrapped each piece in wrapping paper. I did it inside out, so they would all be white. This was more time consuming than I thought, so I stopped here for the night. In the morning the sun came out (yay!), so I was able to take a picture of my hard work the night before:
I should have taken a picture here, but it's pretty easy to explain. I folded each type of fabric, so it was not quite as wide as the cardboard pieces. Then, I attached one end of the fabric to the cardboard with a straight pin, wrapped the fabric until I came to the end, and attached the end to the cardboard with a straight pin. 
I combined smaller pieces of fabric on one cardboard bolt.
Then I put all the bolts in my cube! I actually was able to fit more fabric in a cube than when I was just piling it in there.
I'm so  happy with how they turned out, and it's going to be so much easier to find my fabric now!


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5 comments:

  1. I love this - and I literally have 5 diaper boxes sitting in my garage right now. And hundreds of pieces of fabric piled up...hmmm...now do I have the time to wrap all that cardboard!

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    Replies
    1. It does take a while to wrap the pieces, but you've got to use up those boxes!

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  2. Such a great idea..I'm going to have to get started on this as my fabric right now is all over the place :) Thanks so much for sharing this with us at Sharing Saturday. hope to see you again this week.

    ~MiaB
    www.mamamiasheart2heart.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is a great idea. We just bought a 12 x 24 building that is now my new craft studio. I have all my fabric up in cubes that I can see but I need better organization. I love the idea of wrapping my fabric on the boards. I am going to try this.

    `Mel
    craftymeldesigns.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. It works great! Thanks for stopping by :-)

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