Card Recognition

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Ribbon Shelf


How to satisfy a wife and clean the craft room in 13 ½ easy steps – a tutorial on ribbon storage.



Welcome to the May Arts Ribbon Organization blog hop, thanks to the generous nature of May Arts and my lack of organization, I had a bit of problem with my ribbon storage, so this hop gave me a great excuse to convince the fabulous hubby to make me something.  So, without further adieu, here's my guest on the blog today: Dan Thiem.

In order to see the ever-shrinking craft room floor, I was given the task of creating a ribbon storage cabinet for the growing collection of ribbon in my wife’s craft collection.  Aside from the somewhat elusive brief that “more is more, but cheap is good”, my wife gave me free reign to create at will.

Step 1: Dream up ideas to hold ribbon.  I settled on a basic cabinet with a bunch of dowels to hold spools.


Step 2:  Go to the lumber yard and see what they have.  My lumber yard had clear pine, vertical grain doug fir, redwood and oak.  I chose redwood because it’s red, clear, easy to work with and relatively 
inexpensive.  I purchased 16’ of 5/8” x 5 ½”  board that was in stock. 


Step 3: Come home and figure out how to turn the boards into a cabinet.  I built a jig to cut half-dadoes and full dadoes to join the box pieces together.  This took several hours and several more beers to get right.

Step 4: Measure wife and make sure my cabinet (er I mean her cabinet) wouldn’t be too tall.  I settled on 5’ overall height for the cabinet, perfect for her to place her most precious spools at eye-level.

Step 5:  Cut pieces to length:  2 @ 60” and 3 @ 32 and a bit”

Step 6: Cut half dadoes on top and full dadoes on middle and bottom of side rails.

Step 7:  Cut half dadoes on top cross piece.


Step 7 ½: Sand and finish cut pieces with cherry Danish oil. 


Step 8:  Glue and nail all pieces together to form a cabinet.  I used a pneumatic brad nailer because it sounds cool and shoots metal spikes through wood.

Step 9: Square cabinet and attach back.  I didn’t really know what to do about the back, but had an epiphany while shunting the mower from the back of the house to the front.  Several weeks earlier (and by total coincidence), I had purchased a bunch of redwood fence palings…what better use than to form the back of my new cabinet?  My fence still has a gaping hole in it, but the rough sawn palings add some texture to the cabinet.


Step 9: I finished the palings with Danish oil and nailed them to the back of the cabinet, but when I stood the piece up, two things were immediately obvious.  1. The palings were water logged and heavy so my cabinet fell over backwards.  2. My cabinet was red, pretty, back heavy, and completely useless because I didn’t have a way of attaching dowels to hold the ribbon. Eventually I decided to cut ¾” strips of clear redwood (from my scraps) and drill 3/8” holes on the edges; these served as great little brackets for the dowels.  I also added a filler piece below the paling backers that supported the cabinet more securely in the back. 


Step 10: I finished all of the little brackets (18 in all!) with oil and nailed / glued them to the inside of the cabinet allowing enough room on some for monster 6” spools of ribbon.

Step 11: I admired my handiwork now that the cabinet didn’t fall over backwards, however the front still looked naked.  So, I decided to rip down more fence palings and make a face frame for the cabinet that matched the rough sawn look of the backing. (I also finished the face frame in oil).


Step 12: Cut dowels to fit…ok this didn’t work.  The poplar dowels I got at the lumber yard were so flimsy that even a few spools of ribbon quickly sagged in the middle.  Hello aluminum rod; a much better fit and more secure.  These I cut to fit with a hack saw and some elbow grease.

Step 13: (not yet done) find a place other than the kitchen to store the ribbon storage rack. 

To see what the rest of the May Arts Design Team has created, or out sourced, hop along... the ribbon lady is giving away 3 spools of ribbon to one lucky commenter.

47 comments:

Lynn said...

Dan did an awesome job! I love his play by play. The end result is fabulous!

Karen B. said...

This is the best post ever! Had me giggling out loud. Great job Dan it looks awesome.

~amy~ said...

LOL...excellent. How many orders has Dan taken for the Ribbon Storage rack?

TracyM #6773 said...

WTG Dan - you have made a wonderful storage unit and yes, I think you should take orders :)
Congrats on having such a supportive husband Erin - hope you have lots more crafty adventures like this together!!!

Sue D said...

Great job Dan--it looks wonderful!

Buffy Burnside said...

Oh this one is wonderful...I think I will bookmark this and pass it to my fiance LOL

shirley-bee said...

Dan, I need you! And I love your accurate measuring.

Marcy said...

Love this idea and thanks for the instructions.

Mare said...

Great job Dan! I will have to have the hubby build me one!

Cheryl Walker said...

Beautiful idea, and dont you just love hubby's that help out??!!!! I know they make the crafting designing much fun that is for sure!!! He did a beautiful job!!

Hugs
Cheryl

Unknown said...

Awesome! What a talented hubby you have!!

Kathy/NorthCarolina said...

Very clever...and attractive. Lucky lady to have you in her corner! Your hubby's got skills!

Anonymous said...

I miss my crafty husband. I could explain what I wanted and he'd go off - in a little while he'd be back and say "is this what you wanted?". It was often better than what I originally explained I wanted.
Your new cabinet is great. I'm lacking in floor and wall space in my craft room but if I had room this would be a wonderful addition.

Unknown said...

Wow.. so lucky to have a guy who can do that! However... somewhere i'm going to find a cd storage and find me a drill and right size dowling and make me one too! Can't be all that hard.. just got to make measurements right. :)

SandeeNC said...

OMG, this is the cutest post written, I giggled at his "measuring his wife"..did he not already know how tall she was?..to his epiphany while pulling out the mower...cute guy to have! PLease tell him, the cabinet looks fantastic...now about that gaping hole in the fence...maybe weave some ribbon through it...hmmm...

Becky Dunham said...

Love this cabinet Erin! You are so lucky to have a handy hubby that takes time to build things for you. I really enjoyed his guest post :)

sharon g said...

Oh, you lucky duck. My hubby can do a lot of things, but not that.

Camerageek said...

ahem, all husbands and boyfriends. Did you pay attention to these detailed steps in creating one of these bad boys.

Natasha G.P. said...

That will hold a bunch of ribbon!! What a great look, too. It is very pretty.

Chris said...

Sweet rack!Great way to display your ribbon

Miriam Prantner said...

Wow! Totally impressed by the hubby! This is wonderful!

Venus and Luanne @ Sisters Craft Cafe said...

wow! love the ribbon storage.

Amy Martin said...

Wow... What a great storage unit for Ribbon. He did great.... Oh can I borrow him to make me one.....LOL. It is Gorgeous. What a great Hubby you have.

jen said...

Bwahahaha!!! Love that the plan got better with beer! I turned out awesome! It will be full before you know it!

Jennifer Scull said...

this is quite the fancy set-up!

DeeDee Catron said...

Custom built shelving would win me over, too ;) Throw in the beer, I'm yours for eternity! lol

Ravengirl said...

So nice! What a great shelving unit that the Mister created for you!

Caryn S said...

Love the idea of the aluminum rod instead of the wood. My spools are on wood dowels and they really are wobbly in spite of having pretty good support in several places. Your hubby is great. Mine is really good in the ideas and planning stages, but we have issues with follow-through and completion...

Lucy E. said...

Awesome cabinet, Dan! I think I will have to show my husband this :)

Renee V said...

Ha ha, great job Dan!!!!!!!

Wee Von said...

Love this post and your cabinet Dan. What a great way to store ribbon. I'm sharing with my hubby!

Verna Angerhofer said...

Love this idea. My hope is when my hubby retires I can convince him to build me something for my ribbons too. This might help the cause using a step by step tutorial. Thanks.

~Tammy~ said...

Super cool and big props to the hubs! Seriously..that is love!

Robin B. said...

What a great idea for storing ribbon, it turned out great!

Laurie said...

Awesome! Lucky you!

Unknown said...

I love this "I used a pneumatic brad nailer because it sounds cool and shoots metal spikes through wood." Word.

I could use one too, if you ever want to make another ;)

Rebecca Ednie said...

I wish my hubby had all those cool tools. We just hit the local IKEA!

morentin1326 said...

wow... i am so in like with your ribbon and the display... if only i had the space...
morentin1326((at))aol((dot))com
adventureofthecreativemind.blogspot.com

NWFlamingo said...

Great engineering!

Teresa said...

What an awesome hubby! Love your storage! t.igo

TN Granny said...

What a nice unit, Love all this organization, thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

Oh honey, I have a project for you.......

Caroline D. said...

What an awesome hubby! Can I adopt him? LOL

greggers said...

Terrific job Dan, I wish my hubby was into carpentry and he'd build me one. Your ribbon collection is awesome.

Brenda Kelley said...

What a wonderful husband!! Sounds just like mine....he would do everything in his power to create a solution for me...

Desert Rose Stamper said...

What a great ribbon storage cabinet. You are sooo lucky to have such a talented hubby. Great creation -- now I have to show my hubby what your hubby did -- maybe it will give him an idea. Thanks for sharing.

Rose said...

WTG Dan!!! LOVE IT :)
**hope you gave him lots of beer as a reward :)