Hidden Paperclips

Have made embellishments before with ways to make items with "hidden paperclips" - here is a photo of one of the embellishments I made:

Pretty from the front but here is a photo of the back:

Even with using layers of tear and tape on this embellishment eventually the outline of the back of my paperclip shows.. .. ..  Recently saw a video on YouTube from "Papercraft Crystal" showing how she makes her completely hidden paperclip for embellishments. Thought I would give her way a try as it certainly makes sense -- she uses thin foam tape and that is about the height of the metal paperclip so you will not see the paperclip in the front or the back of your embellishment. She made her hidden paperclips for Valentine's Day and so did I:

In the above photo I have the paperclip embellish on the edge of folded pink card stock. This paperclip will also easily slide over thicker items - in this photo I have the paperclip on the closed packaging of a Honey Bee Stamps product:

Here are photos of how I made one of these following her directions:

White card stock strip for the paperclip to clip on to is 1 1/2" x 8 1/2". Fold in half and put the paper clip on that. Fold each end of the strip over the paperclip front and back:

Cut a printed card stock 1 1/2" by 4 1/2" approx. for the piece that is the front and back of your paperclip holder. Cut four strips of thin foam tape approx. 2" long, as seen in above photo. Put these foam strips onto the white paperclip holder next to the paperclip but be sure to put your foam strips close to the edge of the white card stock piece:

Both the front and back of the paperclip:

On the front of the paperclip peel off the backing to the foam tape and press the white card stock piece over this to adhere it. Do the same to the back:

This photo shows the paperclip embellishment closed from the side view. Using a glue stick for adhesive, as was done in the video, I adhered the printed card stock to the holder--starting at the bottom of the holder -- if you use directional printed card stock beware that the back of your embellishment will have the pattern upside down. I used card stock prints that had no directional pattern to work with. Wrap the printed card stock around to the back. If this printed card stock is too long to cover your embellishment piece just use scissors to cut off the excess.

In the video she used a heart punch for the top of her embellishment - punched out the hearts and cut them with scissors to the size she needed. She used many punched hearts and a glue stick to stack these hearts to the height she would need for her embellishment -- then she punched out her full red hearts for the top of her embellishment -- after I had made my first embellishment from then on I did this step first so I could set my stacked heart pieces aside to dry:

Here is assembly photos to follow:

The above photo shows the hidden paperclip embellishment made and butted up against the top of the heart stacked pieces. I again used glue stick on the top heart piece and then used liquid glue to adhere my red glittered card stock heart onto the embellishment piece:

I adhered the front and then the back glittered red hearts to the paperclip embellishment. Here is a photo of other hidden paperclip embellishments I made for Valentine's Day:

These are good for journals, bag toppers, maybe at the top of a gift bag, to hold a larger tag on something or just to hold items together. This way of making a hidden paperclip really does keep the paperclip hidden and the back of the embellishment is as smooth as the front. The video on YouTube shows the how-to's of this project as she is assembling it and it is very easy to follow. Thanks to Papercraft Crystal for posting her video! Now I can make more of the hidden paperclips using her method and my paperclips really will be hidden on my embellishments .  .  .