Ribbon oh my!

Do I have ribbon? I think I have more then most stores.... But how I was storing stopped working for me a few years ago. I just didn't know what to do about it. I posted the question on how others store their ribbon and the one idea that clicked with me the best was what I went with. (Thanks Terry!) :)

Not only did I have too much ribbon to actually get to all of it, but it was getting really dusty AND my cat, as lovely as she is, decided she liked to unravel it and gnaw on the ends -- sometimes chewing on up to ten inches of my ribbons. A waste and pretty gross actually. I had a piece of ribbon on the floor once, about 4 inches of it and she ATE it. I kept an eye on her and she passed it okay but c'mon... eat my ribbon? It's not like she isn't well fed with goverment approved cat food.

How long did it take you ask? To unwind all of the ribbon off their spools, rewind it all around my fingers and put into baggies, punch holes in the baggies and sort them on the rings.... it took 9 hours over the course of two days, 210 baggies and
9 book binding rings. Oh, and about 5 doses of 800mg of Motrin. Really.

This is my before. I had them on tension rods in the corner of my office -- wedged between my last cabinet and the wall. Pure craziness!



This is with all but three tension rods removed. This would be a great way to store a little bit of ribbon... this did work for me for a while.



This is one of three 13 gallon garbage cans that got filled with the spools once I removed all of the ribbon.



And here are my afters... Ahhhh, feel the calm. They are individually bagged up in ziplock baggies. Punched a hole at the top of each bag and put them thru large book binding rings. Each ring holds one color of all different shades. One ring holds my black, white, creams and brown ribbons, since they didn't need their own per say.



Close up of just a few of the colors...





And they all fit in two large Iris drawers (actually 1 and a 1/2 drawers so there is room for even more ribbon. :) Away from dust, dirt, and my cat. Sorry Ruby.