A Genius $10 Barbie Storage Solution (And It’s DIY!)

Recently, while doing a toy edit in our daughter’s room, I discovered we desperately needed a better solution for Barbie storage. Baskets and bins have always been our go-tos, but the Barbie basket was a mess. The dolls’ hair was tangled and knotted around other doll limbs, and it just got worse each time little hands rooted around inside the basket. So I set out to find a real solution to the doll problem.

When I was a kid, my Barbies were usually kept in a bin too, unless I’d left them in a scene from the last playtime. I did, however, have these other dolls that were a little bit fancy, and had to be kept on stands when I wasn’t playing with them. The stands preserved the dolls, but I remember having a difficult time getting the doll to stand upright after connecting them. So that was out too.

I looked for wall clips online, but didn’t love the price (it would cost over $50 to store all our dolls), but I liked the concept of a clip.

Then I found a pack of 20 spice rack clips on Amazon for under $10. This was exciting to me for many reasons (including the fact that I could now reference her Barbies as “the Spice Girls” while working on the project) but mostly because it brought the budget way down, making the project my two favorite things: Clever and budget-friendly. Plus, they had an adhesive backing, making for minimal tools and ease of application!

Constructing the wall of clips took hardly any time at all, and you can put as many or few details as you want into this DIY. Since I included the cute little scallop paint job, it took me about 30 minutes to create and hang the Barbie clipboard. Skip the paint job and it might take you 15 minutes. Here’s how it’s done:

Once you’ve ordered your clips and decide where you’re going to hang your Barbie board, find a piece of wood to attach the clips to. I recycled a wall decor piece, using the backside of the wood slat, and ended up salvaging the hanging hardware, too. This size (29” x 5”) worked perfectly for the space I attached it to, but the beauty of this is you can get some scrap wood of any size you want from a local home store. The thickness of the wood doesn’t matter too much, but if you can find something around ½” or smaller, that would be best for streamlining the design. Before you move on to the fun part, you’ll want to attach the hanging hardware to the backside of your board. 

Now’s the time to add paint or any embellishments you want, before fastening the clips. I used a mustard color with pink scallop trim for a colorful look that matches my daughter’s room — but feel free to customize to your heart’s content!

The spice clips are made of flexible plastic and can easily be cut apart so you can create the necessary spacing you need between clips to accommodate the widths of the dolls you’re hanging. We were using our board for mostly Barbies, but had a few larger LOL dolls as well, so we split the difference and allowed 1” between clips. Remove the backing from the adhesive and press the clips to the board. 

While the adhesive backing might have been enough to hold each doll, I know my kid, and she’s rough with her toys, so I decided to also put a screw in each clip for extra security. I had ½” flat head construction screws on hand. This is actually a pretty easy place to incorporate kid-help! I started a screw in each clip and had my 5-year-old tighten the screws into the wood slat. The plastic is very flexible, so it was easy to drill the screws through without splitting the plastic clip.

Once the screws were in, we hung the board in place and added the Barbies for the most epic Spice Girls reunion, er, organized display of Barbies ever! The flexible plastic allows for some movement, but there’s definitely a method to get Barbies in and out of their new home. I showed my daughter how to put them in place by explaining that the system is sort of like a lock and key.

The clip is the lock, and the Barbie is the key. The Barbie’s waist has to first go into the lock sideways, then you turn it to the side to set in place. You remove them the same way. She got the hang of it quickly, and was so stoked she could look over and see all her Barbies neatly on display. It’s one small organization solution, but it’s a mighty one that I highly recommend for any Barbie-loving household.