I love all of the tips I’ve learned from other people’s WFMW, so I figured I would do one, too.

I am not what I would consider “crafty”.  I am not very good at scrapbooking, redesigning furniture, making neat artwork.  I don’t have fancy dowel ribbon holders.  I just keep them in baskets.  I do ok with cookies, but that’s about the extent of it.

So individually wrapping cookies, which should be easy, is somewhat of a challenge for me.  Sometimes I think this step takes longer than decorating.    Because of this, I’m always looking for things to make this step easier and faster.  Now this may be common sense for most of you, but it was a total AHA moment for me (which is kind of sad if I really think about it).

So, what is this glorious time-saver that I have discovered?  Well, let me start at the beginning.

We are redoing our kitchen.  It was decorated in 1969 and has been trapped there ever since.  We are slowly but surely bringing it into this century.  A few weeks ago, I removed an old wooden paper towel holder (the kind that mounts to the bottom of the cabinet).

I was going to get rid of it, but I wondered if I could find some use for it.  So I set it aside.

About a week later, I was getting ready to wrap some cookies, and I saw it laying in the corner.  What about curling ribbon rolls?  Would that fit around the rod?

Sure enough!

I placed it on a spot on the counter and pulled the ribbon to the end of the counter.

Then I would cut it, giving me ribbon pieces that were all the same size.  No measuring required!

Now, let me explain to you my old method so you can fully appreciate this revelation.

I would set the ribbon upright.  When I pulled it out, it would often times move the roll, which did not make for equal length ribbon pieces. Also, sometimes the ribbon would get tangled at the bottom of the roll, so I would have to stop and untangle it.  This happened about every 5-6 pieces.  Not very time efficient and extremely frustrating!

Anyways.  Not rocket science, but I’ve done it twice now this way and it has been SO much faster and no tangling!  So it now qualifies as my new method.

Have fun finding what works for you!