Bag clips — anyone got any storage ideas? (Storage for, not storage using.)

[SoManyTeeth]

These things: plastic hinge, bar section, plastic catch — long ones, short ones, old ones, new ones, pricey ones, flimsy ones, oblong ones, rounded ones — so many bag clips and they need somewhere new to live.

My kitchen is minuscule with almost zero storage space. The only drawers are two small plastic ones in a drawer unit on a shelf inside a cupboard, and there absolutely is not room in there for dozens of flaily bag clips to rattle around. (We do keep the long slidey rod-type bag clips in there, though.) So the hingey bag clips currently live on the countertop between the cooker and the sink, in a click-lock Tupperware type plastic box just small enough to fit in the space between two other things, tessellated in the one specific configuration that allows all of them to fit in there, which can only be achieved by highly experienced and extremely patient 3D Tetris players. And if you want a long clip, those are at the bottom, fuck you.

There must be a better way — some fantastic but simple arrangement I haven't yet thought of that's compact, reasonably aesthetically tolerable, protected from dust/vaporised grease/moisture, doesn't require complex installation, easy to put the clips away in, easy to select the clip you want from, and also cheap.

(Apparently we do have to keep them all, because they're useful but break sometimes, and because it seems that in DP's mind they're still as tricky to get hold of as they were several decades ago and are therefore a scarce resource to be guarded. Even the useless 4cm ones which constitute the majority of the bloody things. Throwing any of them away just isn't worth the argument, and I haven't got it in me to gradually, sneakily dispose of at least a few of the crappy little ones behind his back.)

Help?

LTB and make him take the bag clips with him?
🤣

I can't say it hasn't been considered.

At least I've got him to concede that they don't need to be washed up and dried after every single use before being put away, even when they've only touched the clean outside surface of a bag, and will only ever touch the outside of a bag. All those fiddly little crevices :-|

…could you stick a bag of some sort on the back of a cupboard door somewhere? If you stick it with a longish strip of duct tape across the top it would be easy to reach into. (I’m going to have to draw a diagram as I can’t explain it very well!)

Just use clothes pegs and nick em from wherever you keep those!

Just use your clothes pegs!

Officially, they all live in a box in a wall cupboard. Without the lid on, so we can just reach in and get one. But they all seem to be lounging about, unemployed, in various compartments of the fridge.

Good idea, but unfortunately any cupboard door back that has enough clearance between it and the cupboard contents is already being used for storage of e.g. small utensils, measuring spoons, sieves, and the like.

Or get magnetic ones and stick em on the fridge?

Hang up some ribbon and clip all the clips onto that, hang it up as an intriguing piece of modern art.

Ah well, refer to option 1 then!

Don't have clothes pegs in the house at all — allergies and respiratory disorders and living near a busy road and many many sexually-active plants means no drying clothes outside. And drying them inside increases the humidity too much leading to breathing difficulties from that and from mould spores. Everything is tumble-dried. Sorry, planet :(

Actually I could probably live with them lurking around in random corners of the fridge. The cold might make them break more frequently, too 👍

Was just about to say, could you keep them in the fridge? Or the freezer? An even more challenging environment for them!

North and Mumtee those both sound very compact and easy-access, which is great, but the kitchen is about 3m² and I can't have an exhaust hood fitted so anything left out tends to accumulate a layer of grease eventually, no matter how careful I try to be with spatter guards when frying etc. :(

Stick on hook on the inside of a cupboard door. I then use a nappy sack to store them in. Clean one obviously.

I think he might catch on if I relocated them all to the freezer

Magnetised pen pot on fridge?

Have you got anywhere you could put a mason jar-type jar and put them in that?

Hang a peg bag up and put them in that?

Pile them up into a large Tupperware and keep it in the microwave?

Has your sink got a small side sink? Use that to store them?

if you’ve got an apron with a pocket hanging up somewhere put them in the pocket?

Thanks!

threads like this remind me why being single is so SO good!

I have 3 clip style I do use, they live in a beautiful ceramic dish on the worktop, with a couple of similar bits. I have about 3 of the style you have in your photo. They live in the cutlery drawer in a small open box next to the cutlery tray. They rarely get used, but they're not taking up space I'd use for anything else. So they're fine.

my method for tackling things like this, is to select a few I know I will use & have a space for then put the rest in a bag in another room. If I need something enough to retrieve it from that bag, then something else has to go
to make room for it in the kitchen.. If nothing gets used from the bag first a while, the things can be donated/recycled/disposed of. Occasionally I've regretted it when a manufacturer suddenly changes how they sell an item. (Like the homous/dips no longer having lids, just the peel back tops) I kind of wish I'd kept more of the lids, but I don't have enough space to keep liads if everything & something else will do the job.

Ooh. Ooh. I have got magnetised pen pots on the fridge already, for, well, pens (drywipe), as well as sweeteners, and a couple of other things. It would leave them vulnerable to dust/grease etc., and I'd probably need a couple of them, at least, for different size clips (otherwise the little ones would be hard to get to, and also, I'm not kidding, there really are a lot of them), but the fridge might be far enough away from the cooker that they'd stay acceptably clean… that might actually work. I'll look into suitable pots.

Not everything needs to have a purpose built gadget.
If I get a bag of crisps and I want to keep them fresh I roll down the top and put a piece of painters tape / masking tape to hold it closed.
Or I will grab a clothes peg or two to do the same thing.
If a bag is soft pliable plastic not the crinkly stuff I use a twist tie.
The last thing I would do is buy a bag of three or four different shaped bag closures if I had as little space as you do, in fact I have more space than you do by the sound of it, and I still don't buy extra plastic thingys.

Thanks for all the ideas!

Mason jar would probably be a bit big too fit anywhere or too small for the clips, and difficult to get clips out of. Microwave, maybe, but the microwave is in a weird place because there was nowhere for it, really, and I don't know where I'd move the pegs to when it's in use. No side sink, no apron.

I know how obstructive this sounds but I'm trying my best and really do not want to be shooting everything down!

Can't think of anywhere a peg bag could go; feels like every possible surface is taken (e.g. the slanted underside of the stairs has rods mounted to it with hooks to hang cups from… I attached a diagram to try and explain how we use the underside of the stairs for storage) but I'm going to go into my kitchen with a peg-bag eye, and see if I can find anything.

Put the majority in a bag under the bed, on top of the wardrobe etc - you wont have thrown them away and someone can get them if needed.

Keep a few, that you use regularly, in the place you currently keep them all.

You don't find things go soggy with twist ties etc.?

The shapes are not purposeful. It's just that there are survivors from several different sets of bag clips that are essentially the same type of thing, but which each particular company happened to design with rounded edges, a sticky-up catch, pointy corners, a space for a label, etc.

But the question is not whether I would choose to use bag closure technique a) or bag closure technique b), or whether I should stop doing something you think is stupid (which it probably is — we have very limited space and many bag clips, many of which are impractically small). The question is whether anyone has found good ways of storing this specific thing which, while it annoys me, I want to accommodate because someone I love and care about likes having access to these things, and despite my mock-frustrated tone, I am willing to slightly inconvenience myself in order to keep something around which he likes having. It's a pretty minor thing to accommodate in the grand scheme of things.

How long is his hair? Could you keep them there? Plus a new look might spice things up between the sheets. Win-win!

This is probably true. I can keep the tupperware box, store three quarters of the tiny pointless ones in that and stow the box on top of the top cupboards where things definitely don't go to be forgotten and develop a surface layer of concrete made of dust and grease, then use the magnetic caddy on the fridge idea for the privileged few.