I need to come up with a new name for our guest bedroom. It’s definitely not a one-purpose space. In addition to a guest room, it serves as a sewing room, a craft room, and a storage space for all my decor odds and ends.
Hmmm… what about crest room? graft room?
Haha, nevermind. Those both sound like rooms in a dentist’s office!
Guess I’ll just have to settle for guest/craft room for now! As long as y’all know what room I’m talking about, I’ve got another tutorial for an item I dreamed up on the way to organizing this space.
I was sorting through my sewing supplies yesterday and I came across a lot more spools of thread than I realized I had. I don’t know about you, but if I’m ever buying fabric for a project I have a really hard time remembering if I have the right color of thread back home. I thought it would be so much easier to know what threads I had if I could see them every day, and thus a project was born.
With supplies I already had on hand and maybe 30 minutes of fiddling, I came up with this thread holder!
Here’s how you can make one for yourself (and catch more than a glimpse of our lovely 80s entryway tile in the process)!
Tutorial: Make Your Own Thread Holder
Supplies:
Small board 8-12″ long, about an inch thick
Several BBQ skewers
Drill and bit
Glue (I used hot glue)
Small handsaw and sandpaper
I had the idea for this holder in my head before I knew what supplies I would use. Dowel rods seemed too thick to hold the spools of thread and I didn’t want to run out for supplies unless absolutely necessary. One glimpse at our DIY sunburst mirror was all I needed to realize I had a new use for a few of the 50+ barbeque skewers leftover in our pantry!
1. Double-check that your skewers will fit through the thread spool and determine how many skewers you need on your thread holder. Choose the thickest, straightest skewers in the bunch.
2. Measure your board and mark where your skewers will go. My board was about 9.5″ long so I could really only fit about 5 skewers down the length of it if I wanted the spacing between spools to look nice.
3. Select a drill bit slightly thicker than your thickest skewer.
4. Drill the holes for your skewers. I chose not to drill all the way through the board, but the holes were still about 3/4″ deep. That piece of wood directly on the tile is just a scrap from another project that I used to protect the floor in case my drill bit went all the way through.
5. Sand any rough edges around the skewer holes.
6. Decide on the height you want for your thread holders, trim the skewers to length, and sand the rough end of the skewers. I found it’s easiest to place the sandpaper on your work surface and rub the skewer on it, like so:
7. Place the skewers into the base and check that the heights are all about equal. You might also want to do graduated heights to add some interest.
8. Glue your skewers in place. I chose to use hot glue for this step since I needed to make sure the skewers were straight as the glue dried, and I didn’t want to wait for wood glue to set. For a really solid thread holder, I’d suggest wood glue or epoxy and patience. 🙂
9. Once your glue is dry, fill your holder with thread! It’s really that easy.
Here’s a look at the empty holder in its new home.
I eyeballed the straightness of the skewers and it turned out just fine. Don’t stress if yours looks a bit crooked. Any crookedness will be less noticeable once you’ve added your thread.
See? 🙂
Here’s another shot of the most popular shelf in our craft room right now. I have a feeling I’ll be much more inclined to paint and sew now that my colorful supplies are in plain sight.
I think I’ve just come up with a new rule for these “display” shelves. Meaningful art can add height in the background, but the bulk of the shelf space needs to be for items we actually use. I’ve got no use for tchotchkes when space is limited and my craft supplies are just as pretty!
So what do you think of my project? Could you use one of these thread holders in your own home?
I imagine you could use this basic idea to create holders for lots of items. Maybe large pretty beads or in the garage to hold your ratchet sockets. The sky is the limit!
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful weekend everybody! 🙂
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