Clothes pins have been around for what seems like forever, but with all of the “life hacks” trending on the web, people are now able to share their creative uses for a simple clothes pin. As a teacher, I have used clothes pins in my classroom for organizing children into groups, securing stacks of paper, learning games and much more.  The possibilities are really endless.  A few bloggers have already researched and collected many great clothes pin ideas. Check-out the list of more than 40 uses for the traditional wooden clothes pin or perhaps you’ll find some unexpected uses for them at Real Simple.  You may also want to check out this link on Pinterest for some great ideas.

Simple Steps for Enhancing a Clothes Pin:

• Cut out long strips of scrapbooking paper (1 cm X about 8 cm)
• Glue the strips onto the clothes pin with Modge Podge.
• Let dry.
• Trim the excess paper from the edges.
• Distress the edges.  (I like to gently sand the edges to reveal the white paper below the printed surface.  Sometimes I leave the white edges and other times I will use a bit of ink to age it slightly.)
• Modge Podge the surface and let dry completely.
• Embellish with buttons, paper flowers, etc.

You can leave the clothes pins in their natural wooden state or you can play with stain or paint if you’d like to change the base colour.  I have even tried adding fabric to them and that works well too.  Below are a few fridge magnets that I made.  These can be done within a few minutes, but you do have to allow for drying time.  These would also make a great little gifts for a teacher, thank you, thinking of you or hostess..  There are so many awesome ideas for how to use clothes pins for both organization and to enhance your decor, so if you can learn how to dress them up, the options are endless.  Simple, cheap and functional.  I wonder if anyone actually uses clothes pins to hang clothes on the line in anymore?  I am so glad they haven’t yet become obsolete!

I embellished one of the clothes pins as an example of what you might do.

You can see that my pieces are the proper width, but the length is random and will be trimmed later.

Flip the clothes pin over and us an exacto knife to trim the extra paper.

Printed papers can be gently sanded to reveal the white paper below the surface for a distressed look.

Here are the finihshed clothes pins without any embellishments.

Have you ever considered working from home? A revolutionary blogging system has hit the market.  If you are interested in learning how to blog and earn money from home, you need to click this link.