We have a quarter-dozen wide plastic snack-bag clips and several novelty clothes pins that have found a re-purposed existence as clips to hold closed partially-used bags of frozen vegetables, dry-goods such as beans, lentils and of course, snack foods or other bags. These novelty clothespins look like dolphins; I think that they are too nice for general laundry use. They also make a good quick-clip to hold loose paper money and a quick shopping list together.
(image by author)
Where to keep these clips so that they are always available is a problem. In any kitchen drawer here we have knives, eating utensils, boxes of tea, cheese graters and grinders, a dozen or two other stir, mix or mash tools, and so forth, there is no room for irregular objects like bag-clips. We need these these odd-shaped items seperated, but also close and handy. Keeping them in a bowl is also a problem on our crowded kitchen counter. Generally when not in use these are relegated to being clipped to any unused J-hook under the cupboards–hooks that normally hang a colander, bottle brush or other seldom-used but important kitchen item.
Chip Clip Bag Closing Device in Use
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(image by author)
Several of these in a drawer take up a lot of space and they don’t stack well. When several of these clips are occupying the J-hooks there becomes a crowding issue. We needed a fast & frugal solutuion. Here is what I came up with.
Using a Wooden Spoon and Some Basic Hardware
I cut the spoon portion off of a never-used, long wooden mixing spoon and sanded the rough edge smooth, leaving a smooth rod. Using a small drill, I next drilled two holes. One at each end of the rod and about 1-inch from the respective ends. I counter-sunk the holes on one side to accommodate the screws that I would be using.
Using two screws about 1 1/4 inches long would attach this to the underside of the over-the-sink cupboard. Woodscrews would probably be best, but I used drywall screws. They are sharper and start a new hole easier, and their steep pitch of threads makes them screw in faster and very tightly. (Besides–it is what I had to work with at the time.)
To hold the wooden dowel a little bit away from the underside of the cupboard, a ’spacer’ is required. I used two machine nuts, as shown in the diagram below.
(image by author)
Using a machine nut on each end as a spacer, I threaded the drywall screw through the dowel, through the machine nut and into the underside of the kitchen cupboard, tightening completly so as to make this stable and unmoving.
The Finished Dolphin Hitching Post
(image by author)
I might replace these unsightly machine nuts with wooden orbs, also with a hole drilled through the poles. But this works and it is effective just the way it is. It solves a problem: what to do with out-of-service snack bag clips.
We call it the ‘dolphin hitching post.’
