Thursday 2 May 2013

Make your own binder clip tabs

On my recent trip to Orlando, I bought a packet of binder clip tabs:


Once I was home, I set about making my own. I began with a postcard. Any piece of fairly thick card would do. I first cut out a rectangle shape from it, measuring about 40mm x 35mm:


These are for the small binder clips, which are 19mm wide, but you can scale up if you want to use larger ones.

Next, about 20mm from the top, I cut a slot 20mm wide and just 2mm tall, like this:


This bit is impossible with scissors, but a sharp craft knife does the job.

Here's the actual piece I cut out:


The next step is to attach the binder clip itself. I tried this a number of ways, most of which involved disassembling the clip, but I'm pleased to report you don't have to.

First, you have to put one of the binder arms through the slot you made and then poke the jaw through the hole, like this:


Now you can gently help the card find its way between the jaws until the clip is fully inserted, thus:


Here's how the finished clip now looks:


And here it is keeping my place in a magazine:



4 comments:

Amanda Fleet said...

I think I'd rather disassemble the clip than "puke the jaw through the hole"
But anyways...
I've not seen these kind of clips before. What other uses do they have? And aren't the jaws a bit strong for marking your place in a magazine? Do they crimp the paper (or is that just a reflection of the clips I use?)?

Ray Blake said...

To mark your place inj a magazine I think you'd clip more than one page. I'd clip from the page I was on to the back of the magazine.

Anonymous said...

This is awesome! Thanks for sharing!

pattygardner.com said...

You are so resourceful! I love seeing what you'll come up with next.

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