Organization hacks – DIY Paper Holder

After ogling at a colorful French knitted knotty coasters in google images search, I decided to make one myself. The site which had the instructions is not working right now, however it used some knitting tool to make the i-cord pattern. I followed few links and found how to make i-cord. Made an i-cord, it seemed to take forever and looked more like a snake.  Once it got into good length, knotted them into a coster. They looked really cute, but the shape was really wobbly. I tried blocking it multiple times, but it was still wobbly and tipping glasses. What good is a wobbly toaster that topples glasses? Sigh. I had to put them away and used the normal coasters.

Few years passed by and I was watching a youtube video on creative ways of using command hooks. The method used in the video was – put thick beads on a long-thick string and use that as tissue holder. The beads are supposed to help roll the tissue easily.

This DIY helps save counter space and avoid knocking over the tissue roll, hence I had to use it. However, I did not have the thick rope/string or the beads, but the spark went in my head. I ran to my storage room (fancy name for Monica’s secret closet – F.R.I.E.N.D.S reference – as if you didn’t know :)) and looked around and found the coaster and started putting it together.

 

Before we see on how I put them together, let us see the materials used:

Materials Required:

• 2 Command Hooks
  • Use the hooks that can hold the weight of your tissue roll.
  • I used Command Designer Hooks, Medium size
• I-cord
  • The beauty of this is -> substitute with anything that you have that can
    • hold the tissue weight,
    • lets the tissue roll and
    • is of required height.

 

Now let us set it up:

Attach the command hooks:

• Follow the instructions and attach the command hooks. The distance between the command hooks should be just slightly less than the length of the tissue roll.

Prepare the String:

• Since I had a knotted coaster, first step was unravelling it 🙂
• The length of the i-cord I had was too long, so I just folder them over and over until I had the desired height. If you are making one from scratch, you can stop when you get the desired height. However, with the folder over layers setup, rolling the tissue was much easier and it was holding the weight of the tissue well.
• This is where you can get more creative and look around for things that you can reuse to hold the tissue roll.
  • If you are using some other option – like rope or thick string with beads -> the count of beads that you need would be same as length of your tissue roll and cut the rope or string to the desired length.

String the tissue roll:

• String the i-cord through the tissue roll
• Tie of the ends.

Hang the i-cord/string:

• Hang the i-cord on the command hooks. This is how the full setup looks like: