Both children and adults will enjoy making crafts.

Sometimes the most extraordinary things can come out of completely unexpected materials and with a minimum of effort and time. This is especially true in the pre-New Year period, when there are only a few days left before the holiday, and you want to decorate your apartment and spend time with your child. So why not combine these two activities with some DIY crafts. In addition, you probably have a few extra clothespins to create, which also won’t break when in contact with children.

It would seem that you can make from ordinary linen wooden clothespins. But in children's hands they can turn into favorite toys, for example, or unusual ones. And for inspiration, we have collected 20 ideas with photos of what can be made from wooden clothespins.

Crafts from clothespins: DIY snowflakes

If you take each clothespin apart and then glue it back together, but in the shape of snowflakes, you can get this wonderful wall decor. You can leave these in your natural color or paint it with paints, which children will do with pleasure.

Crafts from clothespins: DIY Christmas trees

A child can use wooden clothespins to make and decorate by simply gluing clothespins, beads, rhinestones and buttons onto cardboard.

Crafts from wooden clothespins: New Year's garlands

With your child, decorate each clothespin with pieces of felt or colored paper to make Christmas trees or, for example, snowmen, hang the clothespins on a rope and add white ones - ready!

DIY crafts from clothespins: Christmas wreath

One of the simplest crafts made from wooden clothespins is. The main thing is to stock up on enough clothespins and find a thin hanger that you won’t mind twisting into a circle.

Crafts from clothespins: New Year's wall decor

If your child has collected a lot of small toy animals and trees, you can use them to make incredible ones, or glue them to clothespins, which, in turn, are glued to the wall with double-sided tape. You will get an original wall installation!

New Year's crafts from clothespins

You can also decorate clothespins and write on them, and then decorate them new Year gifts to family and friends. This original addition will please everyone.

Now you know that even from ordinary wooden clothespins you can make wonderful ones. Christmas decorations And new Year decoration for children. And most importantly, your child can make such crafts with his own hands!

All you need to create it is a couple of clothespins, twine and a tea strainer.

Multifunctional hanger

In order to make it, you need not quite ordinary clothespins - elongated ones, with a hook at the end. But you can not only hang clothes, but also leave messages for your household.

Halloween decorations

All Saints' Day is approaching - it's time to think about decorating your home. Clothespins painted in traditional Halloween colors - black and orange - are perfect for this. Draw a devil, a pumpkin and other characters on them (or make them out of paper), and the toys are ready.

"Live" toys

To please yourself and your children, you can make toys from clothespins. Draw a shark on paper, for example. Glue one half of it to the bottom of the clamp, and the other to the top. As a result, by squeezing the clothespin, the shark will “open” its mouth.

Photo collage

To create such an original photo collage you will need a beautiful frame, rope, clothespins and the actual photographs. Stretch a string inside the frame and attach your favorite photos to it.

Wheel frame

You can also make an unusual photo collage using clothespins and an old bicycle wheel. The knitting needles will serve as a “support” on which you can pin photographs.

New Year card

Clothespins painted in White color, with cute faces and cheerful scarves - a great addition to New Year's card. Attach them to paper, and good snowmen will transform your congratulations.

Garland for congratulations

This is a great solution for congratulating colleagues in the office. Make such a “board of honor” with garlands of clothespins, and any employee can leave their congratulation note there.

Wedding congratulations

Typographic postcards are banal. Surprise the newlyweds with a clothespin card. To do this, paint one part of it white (the bride's dress) and the other part black (the groom's tuxedo). Don't forget about eyes, lips and veil. “Open” clothespin – lovers look into each other’s eyes; “closed” - merged into passionate kisses. This original congratulations will replace a thousand words.

Christmas decorations

Two clothespins glued together and one more attached on top, and Santa's reindeer is ready. All that remains is to paint the toy suitable color, draw eyes and attach a nose. In this design, Rudolf & Co look very cute on the Christmas tree.

Sweet butterflies

These “butterflies” with delicious filling are what you need for children's party. Place treats in plastic bags and tie them with a butterfly-painted clothespin to create wings. Children will not only have a tasty meal, but also, thanks to original packaging, Interesting.

Candlestick or flowerpot

Using a tin can and wooden clothespins you can make two beautiful and useful things at once. If you attach clothespins to the edge of the jar and place a small candle in a glass cup inside, you will get a candlestick; and if you pour soil inside and plant flowers, you will get an original flowerpot.

Pac-Man

Making Pac-Man couldn’t be easier: cut a yellow circle in the middle, draw an eye on one half and glue it to the top of the clothespin, and the other, respectively, to the bottom. And to make it look completely realistic, you can also attach a figurine of a ghost.

Postcard holder

If you want your message to be noticed immediately, then do not put it down, but put it on the table. An ordinary clothespin will help you with this. True, it is better to use a clamp with wide “legs” - this way the holder will be more stable.

Clothespins-Batman

These are clothespins for real superheroes. Making them yourself won't be so easy (you'll have to get wings from somewhere), but you'll have the coolest superhero cape gadgets in the world.

Photo wall

This is another way to organize and store photos. A metal grid and clothespins will help free your favorite photos from the dusty captivity of a photo album. Plus, you can change the exposure as often as you like.

pencil

10-15 wooden clothespins can be used to make a very cute pencil cup. It’s enough just to glue them together “in a circle.” And to make it even more beautiful, gild it and wrap it with a ribbon. But don’t forget about the bottom - it can be made of cardboard.

Clothespin pencil

Designer Bartosz Mucha tried to combine the incompatible. He “crossed” a pencil and other objects with a clothespin. The result turned out to be quite interesting - things went from ordinary to multifunctional. True, the practical feasibility of such transformations is questionable.

Wreath

From a metal hoop and many multi-colored (or rather, painted in different colors) clothespins you can make a wreath like this for interior decoration. An undeniable advantage is that if you get tired of this decor, you can easily change it by coloring the clothespins differently.

Chandelier

To make such a designer chandelier you will need metal rings and mesh, a light bulb socket, wires, metal scissors and many, many clothespins. Detailed instructions for production see here. The result is a very atmospheric herringbone chandelier, comfortably scattering light throughout the room.

Labels

In order not to get confused in your own linen closet, you can make these funny labels. To do this, you need to stick beautiful pieces of paper on a clothespin and make the appropriate inscriptions: “towels”, “sheets”, “diapers”, etc.

Cat in a hat

Such funny toy It will appeal not only to children, but also to adults. After all, it's a cat! However, you can “dress up” any animal dear to your heart with a hat and bow tie. To do this, you need to find suitable pasta, glue it to a clothespin and decorate it.

Flower clip

You won’t surprise anyone with flowers in ordinary plastic packaging, but you can with a bouquet with a clothespin holder. The main thing is to find a larger clothespin (so that the stems fit into the “eye”) and decorate it a little.

Fridge magnets

By gluing magnetic paper (available in office supply stores) to one side of the clothespin and decorating it beautifully, you will get a bright and useful refrigerator magnet. Useful because you can attach photos, notes, etc. to it.

Little mice

Another cute little thing for children and their parents is mice made from clothespins. The ears, antennae and tail are made of felt, the eyes are purchased (although you can draw them). Making such a mouse will not take more than half an hour.

Wreath – photo holder

This is another wreath option for interior decoration. To make it you will need an old wire hanger, paint, ribbon and, of course, clothespins. They need to be painted in any suitable color, and then strung on a hoop made from a hanger. At the same time, the clothespins will retain their functionality - you can attach photographs of loved ones to them.

Kitchen hanger

It is difficult to find non-standard uses for household items such as clothespins. But it’s possible! For example, don’t use them to pin clothes together, but use them and a measuring tape to make a hanger for all sorts of kitchen items. Looks very bright.

Desk lamp

German designer David Olschewski likes to use household items for other purposes (for example, a shovel and fork as a clothes hanger). Sometimes it turns out really great. At least the table lamp made from clothespins looks impressive.

Mirror

To make such a frame for a wall mirror, you need: the mirror itself, clothespins, glue gun, “paperclip”-fastening, satin ribbon and...a tin can. The latter will be needed in order to glue the clothespins evenly in a circle.

Wedding accessories

Such beautiful delicate clothespins, decorated with artificial flowers, can be used to secure covers for chairs, tablecloths, canopies and others. decorative elements used at weddings.

Photo surprise

Take this idea to heart if you want to surprise a loved one. A garland of photographs attached to a rope with clothespins is a bright and romantic way to remember your best moments together.

Whale and shark

Fans of marine themes will surely love the clothespin whale and clothespin shark. Such toys can be made by decorating the clips accordingly and attaching fins. The red felt tongue will “revive” even more sea giants.

Airplane

All you need to become an “aircraft builder” are popsicle sticks and a clothespin. Paint them in contrasting colors, glue it together, and the biplane is ready.

Yarn storage holders

This is a life hack for needlewomen. Handmade craftswomen often have a little yarn left over from balls of yarn. It’s a shame to throw it away, but it’s a hassle to store it. But clothespins will help solve this problem.

Hot stand

If you disassemble the clothespin, then from its parts you can make a very useful thing in the household - a stand for hot plates and pots. To do this, the parts of the clothespins need to be glued together at the ends to form a circle.

Let's start, as promised, with simple crafts for the little ones. For kids, we suggest making dragonflies, a chicken, a palm, gliders, a flock of sharks... and not limited to this list.

In addition to clothespins, we will need:

• glue;
• popsicle sticks (a great excuse to eat ice cream more often, isn't it?);
• paper or cardboard;
• brush and paints;
• scissors;
• threads, buttons and beads.

Clothespin dragonfly

1. Color the clothespin.

2. String 2 beads on a thread, glue the thread to the “lip” of the clothespin so that it looks like eyes.

3. Take 2 popsicle sticks, fold them crosswise and secure with a clothespin clip. The dragonfly is ready!

Chicken Little

A bright chicken is a cute decoration for a flower pot. Especially if they haven't bloomed yet.

1. Paint the clothespin with yellow paint.

2. Cut out wings and a head from yellow paper, and a comb and beak from red paper.

3. Glue a comb and beak to the chicken’s head, draw eyes.

4. Glue the body and wings to a clothespin. That's all, it turned out to be a chicken.

Crafts from clothespins: air flotilla

And boys will definitely appreciate this craft.

1. Paint the clothespin blue.

3. Paint 2 long popsicle sticks red and 2 short ones blue.

4. Glue short sticks to the tail of the glider, and use long sticks to make parallel wings.

5. Cut out a screw from yellow paper and decorate it with a red button.

6. Glue the propeller to the nose of the plane.

Don’t limit yourself to a single plane, make a whole combat squad - firstly, children will find it interesting to play with each other, and secondly, these toys allow them to explore new spaces for play (bedspreads, tablecloths, curtains), previously inaccessible.

Palm made from clothespins

The palm is the simplest craft made from clothespins: you just need to cut out a circle-palm from cardboard and attach clothespins to it.

School of sharks

Scary toothy sharks - equipment for playing shipwreck and treasure.

1. Paint clothespins blue.

2. Cut out triangular fins, paint or decorate with glitter, and glue.

3. Draw the teeth.

4. Use a medicine blister, cardboard and beads to make eyes for the sharks.

Ready! Rotating its eyes madly, the predatory craft made from clothespins rushes towards the treasure hunters. And even bites if they swim too close!

Want to show how a shark hunts? Glue a small cardboard fish to one side. It will be visible when the shark opens its mouth.

We showed only a few crafts made from clothespins - the possibilities of this simple material at hand are truly inexhaustible. Experiment with your children, make toys and create entire worlds populated by clothespin characters.

You turn a clothespin in your hands and wonder - what can be made from such a small thing? Home decor? Come on! And then you start looking for other needlewomen online, and bewilderment turns into a pleasant shock. And now an hour later you realize that you can make anything out of such an ordinary thing! So Wikipedia is lying a little, saying that a clothespin is just “a special type of clip, usually used for attaching objects (such as clothing) to a rope”!

Archaeologists claim that primitive people used clothespins! They simply tied two pieces of wood together with animal sinew (hence the name?) and attached clothes to dry (okay, some semblance of clothes!). Later they even began to decorate hairstyles (this is apparently how the hairpin appeared) and clothes (instead of buttons).

The technology for making such a primitive clip was actively improved, to the point that in America, in just thirty years (from 1852 to 1887), patents were issued for 146 types of clothespins!

Everything simple is brilliant, and designers and architects rush to admire this genius - in Philadelphia there has long been a monument to this elementary device, which was allegedly sponsored by an American who made a fortune on clothespins. But in fact, this is a beautiful legend, and in reality the author of the monument is the famous primitivist Klaus Oldenburg, a great fan of perpetuating everyday objects. A similar monument stands in Belgium and is a local landmark.

Pin!

The same one, quite ordinary,

that the bra holds tightly after washing,

and does not allow the sheet to come off.

In vain our souls are rushing to heaven,

rushing to unknown lands.

Suspended us in space, suspended in time,

Everyone has their own clothespin.

Yes, there is something to think about...

Solid clothespins are also called “gypsy”. The history of the name stretches back to England, where the clothespin came with nomadic gypsies - they used willow branches fastened together with plaits.

Over time, wood was replaced with metal, since the former quickly turned black and stained linen. Later they began to make plastic clamps, although they became brittle and cracked in the cold and scorching sun.

So, what can you do with a handful of unnecessary clothespins? Napkin holders, flower pots... You can use them to decorate a Christmas wreath or gift wrapping, writing on the end a wish or the name of the recipient - whatever! You can use clothespins to decorate mirrors and photo frames, use them as a basis for toys, or make original clips for kitchen towels. You can also create entire colorful sets of card holders with the names of guests at a dinner party by decorating the clothespin with artificial flowers, ribbons, corrugated paper for packing bouquets, beads and beads, decorative cords and ribbons!

Here are some examples of how you can make creative toys from ordinary clothespins:

Some fashion designers even manage to make dresses, jabots and boleros out of them!

Clothespins can serve as bright and original reminders:

They can be decorated in an original way and used for decorations:

Unusual business card-clothespin:

And with these clothespins you can decorate a wedding ceremony or any other holiday:

The original use of clothespins in industrial design. Here is a trash can, the operating principle of which is based on clothespin holders.

The kitchen is generally the most appropriate place to use clothespins:

From original towel holders....

To the creative clothespin napkin holder.

Great idea for crafters: spool clothespins. It is very convenient to clamp the end of the thread so that it does not unwind.

Interesting photo frame:

Decorative wreath for the door made of clothespins:

To do this, you will only need wooden clothespins, glue (ordinary PVA will not work, use superglue or a glue gun) and used canned food cans that will easily fit your flower pot.

Another master class on how to make such a cute barrel for storing all sorts of favorite little things. Imagine how fresh your kitchen will be if each cereal is stored not in ordinary jars, but in its own cute barrel?

You will need: a can of chips (a mini Pringles can is ideal), clothespins, any colorful fabric for decoration, rope or strands, a wooden bead for decorating the lid, cardboard, a self-tapping screw, a glue gun.

Carefully study the photo master class and create!

The first clothespins appeared back in the Stone Age and since then have served mainly for household purposes. But if you have a handful of unnecessary (at least temporarily) clothespins, they will be useful not only for drying clothes - after all, you can use them to create a lot of interesting things with your children! Toys, home decor, miscellaneous useful little things– and all this is simple, fast and literally out of nothing.

Making toys

Let's start with them, perhaps. Maybe clothespins don’t make the most luxurious toys, but that doesn’t matter - after all, the very process of creating them turns into a game.

We may need plastic and wooden clothespins, paints and markers, colored paper and cardboard, glue and scissors, an egg tray, popsicle sticks, toy “moving” eyes (they can be made from pills) and other little things that will be at hand in time.

Clothespins just need to add a few details to make them look like some kind of animal or airplane. And clothespins disassembled into halves can be used as construction parts and assembled from them, say, doll furniture, a dinosaur skeleton or an entire fortress.

Little comical scenes depict a chicken emerging from an egg and a gift emerging from a box; while the toad catches a fly, the shark eats fish for breakfast... You can come up with plots yourself - everything is very easy and does not take much time.

For work we will need pencils, cardboard and glue. We cut out any shape from cardboard at our discretion. You can even cut out a ready-made template from a book or magazine), then glue both parts onto a clothespin - and have fun with “theater” on clothespins

And here are cute little animals on “stilts” - figures cut out of paper with paws made from clothespins. Here you can draw, paint, and rustle with scissors - and then help your drawings “stand firmly on their feet” in three-dimensional space. Simple and convenient!

It will be useful on the farm...

A hot stand is always a relevant and necessary thing in the house! For these purposes, it is better to use wooden clothespins, since the plastic may accidentally melt under a “dusty” frying pan or pan. The manufacturing technique is simple: help the child remove the springs from the clothespins, and he can easily glue them together into a fan himself.

Such a napkin holder would look good in the company of a samovar: there is something very Russian about it that makes it similar to carved wooden towers... Just think - and just recently it was clothespins!

Great idea for crafters: spool clothespins. It is very convenient to clamp the end of the thread so that it does not unwind.

Homemade watch

Quite an interesting way to plan your day: thanks to clothespins, you can easily change your “schedule”, rearrange items and use the main cards for a long time. We connect the clock mechanism from an old alarm clock to a plate, on the edges of which you can draw numbers or simply rely on the prompts of clothespins.

Frame for collage

We have a universal design for pictures, notes, memorabilia, as well as a reusable frame for holiday decor. It’s not at all difficult to do something similar: we take a set of wooden clothespins, as well as a couple of meters of tape and the future frame - a wooden hoop or photo frame. We collect everything that will please the eye and begin to loosely attach it to the base with clothespins. The main thing is not to overdo it and maintain the color scheme. Now we pass a ribbon through our “wreath” and tie a big bow, and you can hang it - either on the wall or on the door.

Pots for greenery

It looks fresh and original: a flat tin can (from sardines, caviar, some kind of whiskey) and ordinary clothespins turn into a cute pot (or a cup for pencils).

The tin must first be thoroughly washed and dried, and the paper label, if any, must be removed. Now we tightly place wooden clothespins on the edges of the jar (plastic ones do not form an even wall, but will stick out to the sides). You can place small house plants or cut flowers in a glass inside.

Mirror frame

For eco-style decor, in addition to the mirror itself, we will need wooden clothespins. You can simply attach them to the edges, or you can make your life more difficult and, by removing the springs from the clothespins, thoroughly “blind” the frame using mirror glue, thick cardboard and acrylic paint.

More light!

You can make stylish lamps from wooden clothespins. In the photo on the left, a piece of mesh twisted into a cylinder is used as a base. On the right is a large spiral of wire. Clothespins are attached to any type of frame in a matter of minutes, and the craft is ready! The finished lamp gives beautiful and soft shadows on the floor and walls.

But these candlesticks are made using the same technique as plant pots: they will decorate the ceiling with bright spots of light in the form of stars.

Decorative clothespins

Why not just decorate your boring household clothespins? Some creative craftsman has decorated them with stylish fabric flowers... If you don’t really like flowers or seem too troublesome, let your child simply decorate them with buttons and rhinestones. But you shouldn’t paint clothespins with paints or felt-tip pens - if you are still going to use them for laundry, of course.

But you can also use such elegant clothespins for decoration, as well as pinch gift wrapping with them or add them to a card. In this case, the clothespin can be decorated with fabric, wrapping paper, strewn with beads - in a word, let your imagination run free.

Colored (painted) clothespins with inscriptions in marker can serve as bright and original “reminders”, complement notes on the refrigerator and generally bring a little humor into our everyday life. In our photo, for example, multi-colored “motivators” are advised to take good solutions and rightly so, they remind you of the need to be yourself and call your mom.

As you can see, clothespins can be useful for many things - and even if hand-made decor does not fit into the interior of your home, then clothespins are always welcome in children's creativity!