Things You Can Do With Bread Clips

The discussion went like this "I know someone who has a whole bowl full of those plastic bread tags..." I had to confess, I have a very small ziplock bag with them in too. Just in case.  In my case the tiny bag is enough to let me know I don't need to keep any more than will fit in this tiny space. 

Background

"The bag clip was created by a California inventor named Floyd Paxton, who whittled the first prototype from a piece of plastic while flying home from a business trip in 1952. Paxton soon founded Kwik Lok, based in Yakima, Wash., and still the dominant clip manufacturer today, with plants on four continents. The clips were originally applied by hand to bags of apples, but Kwik Lok began making automated machinery to apply the clips to bakery products in the early 1960s."

Now in the US bread clips are in a fight for dominance with twist ties! You can read about that here 

So what DO you do with these everyday items that seem to breed in the kitchen drawer?

 Here are some things that people are using them for in the pursuit of making their lives better...

For the arty types

self-referential bread clips

Beth Taylor used three quarters of the bread tags in her 16,000-strong collection
to create a series of sculptures of the solar system. 

"I had a lovely experience last year, a woman from Washington State contacted me and commissioned me to create an artwork for Jerre Paxton," she says.

"Jerre's father invented bread tags and he now runs the company."

Plastic tags are still made by his company Kwik Lok at factories around the world, including Melbourne.  Read more: about bread clips

Bread clip mosaic

Bread clip art even has a Facebook Page 

For the practical and thrifty types

To improve a charging station

Keep track of which cord is which

Always find the end of the tape!

store thread

Serious knitters may like using a bread clip as a stitch placeholder

Keep rubber bands or hair bands tidy

label keys

Keep small cords tidy

Keeping it classy here

More art - Get arty and make you own monsters! 

not just bread clips - you can save twist ties too! 

Then there is this... (Not recommended!)

Physicians create a taxonomy of bread-bag fasteners that have been lodged in people's colons

"It appears that there have been a surprising amount of cases in which these clips end up lodged where the sun doesn't shine (and medical pen lights do). These little clips do a lot of damage and can cause "small bowel perforation, obstruction, dysphagia, gastrointestinal bleeding and colonic impaction." Furthermore, they're hard to diagnose as they're translucent to X-rays and other noninvasive methods of search. Doctors only discover these little clips when they open a person up."  Read more ... here

Now if that's not enough tips for you head on over to my Pinterest board for more Household Tips