Mommy Monday: DIY washi tape dispenser

It should come as no surprise to my faithful readers that I love washi tape. I use it to hang pictures, label things, and of course in my planner. I always admired with envy the beautiful dispensers and displays that people had for their washi tapes- they just looked so pretty and organized, and seemed to make it so much easier to find and use the tape that they had! But I just could not bring myself to spend money buying something that, realistically, is not at all necessary, and the homemade ones all involved woodwork. So I sighed at the beautiful pictures and moved on. Then one morning I pulled out one of my straws (which had come as extras with some old water bottles the girls had and are made of thick plastic) to use in my coffee and I realized they were the perfect shape to hold rolls of tape! No wooden dowels needed! And thus, my completely free and does-not-involve-any-woodworking DIY washi tape dispenser was born :)

*sigh* Isn't it beautiful?!? It makes me happy just looking at it! Let me show you how I made it- it honestly took about 10 minutes to make!

Supplies: I used two of those thick plastic straws, a piece of scrapbook paper, scissors, double-sided tape, a wooden box (that used to hold my girls' bead set that they got for Christmas), and of course, washi tape.

I was lucky to have the wooden box on hand. When I consolidated the girls' toys and organized them, I kept a couple of the original containers because they were just too nice- I just KNEW I would find a way to use them! I still have one more nice wooden box sitting in my closet waiting to be used, but I'm glad I found a use for this one! Both of them were from Melissa and Doug toys, actually- they package their things very nicely :) So before I started, I checked to make sure the straws were long enough to go across the box (they were). I could have just used the box as-is and it would look perfectly fine, but I decided to make it a little more fun with some scrapbook paper on the bottom. I laid the paper in the bottom and used the highly-scientific method of folding it over at the edge to measure where to cut.

The paper I chose didn't go all the way to the edges on the long side, but that was fine with me because I didn't want to mess with the slanted corners and I knew that part would be mostly covered by the rolls of tape anyway. Since I knew the paper wouldn't be getting much wear and tear, I took the lazy route and stuck it down with double-sided tape.

Once that was in, I needed to figure out how to place my tape on the two straws and fit them all in. What I should have done in this step (but didn't realize until later) was also make sure all of the rolls were facing the right way so that the tape would come off towards the edge of the box.

I decided to put all of the solids on one side and the patterns on the other. Those thinner, solid colored tapes are a great buy if you're wanting to start a stash, by the way- I got them here.

I stuck the straws through the rolls of tape with the ends laying across the top of the box. I had originally thought I would hot glue the straws to the box, but then I realized I wouldn't be able to take off old rolls or add new ones very easily, so I decided to use some of the washi tape to hold the straws. I was a little bit worried about the durability so I put a long strip all the way down each side of the box (it was during this process that I realized I needed to check which way each roll was facing and had to take some rolls off the straws to turn them... oops). I actually have a roll of thin tape with a wood grain look, so I used that one. The only trick was to cut the second piece long enough and put the roll back on the straw before taping it down.

Voila! Once everything was taped down, I just pulled a little piece of tape off of each roll and stuck it to the edge of the box to make it easier to see each tape and easier to grab a piece when I need it (don't you hate twirling the roll of tape round and round in your hands trying to find where the tape starts?!?). The nice thing about this particular box is that it's long enough that I have space in the middle where I can keep other supplies. See how nicely my scissors fit?

So there you go- my DIY washi tape dispenser made from stuff I had on-hand in under 10 minutes. And makes me so happy just looking at it. Do you have a stash of washi? How do you organize yours?