Build the Best Blanket Forts Ever With These Inexpensive Clips

Few things in life offer quite the magical payoff of a good blanket fort. With some old linens and imagination, kids can suddenly transport themselves to a castle, a spaceship, or any number of far-flung destinations. That’s just the kind of novelty my then 5- and 7-year-old daughters needed one winter, as we spent much of our time driving each other nuts in our five-room New York City apartment. Building forts may not offer the thrill of, say, traveling to Legoland, but I hoped it might ease the monotony of the rainy season and offer a good distraction from screens.

Problem was, we needed a better way to hold up our fortresses.

Esfun Beach Towel Clips (16 Pack)

Staff-favorite towel clips

Cheapie, candy-colored towel clips are the key to building sturdy blanket forts — which help combat the cold-weather blues.

Buying Options

$9 from Amazon

Anyone who has constructed a blanket fort knows that the trick to building great ones lies in how you attach all that fabric to different surfaces. My girls and I have cycled through some poor alternatives. Gorilla Tape worked great, until the tape ripped fist-sized chunks of paint off our walls. Binder clips were okay, but the largest ones tended to snap off chairs with even the lightest tug, and my kids struggled to open them. Piles of books? Tried that—and we’re lucky no one was clobbered by a falling pile.

Our solution came this one winter in the form of several sets of towel clips, which are meant to keep beach towels from flying off chairs on windy days. I stumbled upon them while researching these beautiful Waldorf-style wooden clips, which are often paired with gauzy lengths of play silks and even a frame to make diaphanous, Instagram-worthy forts to which the forest-school mom in me totally aspires. But the frugal, pragmatic me—who usually wins—balked at paying $30 for four clips and doubted whether my 5-year-old could open them on her own. Then I happened upon the inexpensive towel clips that multiple people on Amazon tout as great for fort building. At only $11 for 16 clips, they seemed worth a shot. I ended up purchasing 32 clips for less than the cost of four of the wooden clips.

Perfect for little hands — and big imaginations

As soon as they arrived, my kids and I went to town hanging old sheets and blankets in architecturally dramatic angles from their bunk bed, desk, and bookshelf. I was surprised by how well the clips attached the fabric to almost any ledge, even the minuscule clasps on our windows. They’re easy to open, even for my younger daughter, and they’re surprisingly strong, staying put with the minor tugs that would send binder clips flying. When my kids get tired of one fort location, they can easily move their creation somewhere else in their bedroom or create something new with our dining table and chairs. These pop-up fabric cocoons have provided an escape for reading, Zoom school, and Lego building sessions, and they’ve afforded a little privacy for my girls when they've needed it.

These clips do just what we want them to, and they’re cheap enough that it’s no biggie if they break or if my girls lose a few. When fort building is done, I appreciate that the clips attach in a neat, colorful row on the side of the bunk bed, ready for the next use. And I even use a couple to close bags of chips or flour in our pantry—extending the clips’ use beyond my kids’ fort creations.

When the weather got warmer, I was tempted to invest in yards of silk lining to build outdoor forts with our clips this summer. But we ended up just using our old sheets and blankets instead. Because you don’t need to get fancy to build a good fort.

The current version of this article was edited by Rachelle Bergstein.