How to coil wire

Do you know if you Google this term it will actually take you to pages and pages of people wrapping up their extension cords.
Not at all what I was looking for - wrapping up your extension cord seems self-evident to me - but maybe that's just me.

What I actually wanted to accomplish was this:

image courtesy of Memepix

I don't use my phone in my car - I promise.
I don't even have an iPhone or a Samsung to be honest.
It was the idea of neat cables for my Garmin and iPad at home that had me drooling.

I need to premise this post by saying - do this at your own risk!
I can't gauge how long you heat your cords, or their threshold for coiling, or even the size pen/pencil you use - so I can't give an overall "Go for it" without warning you that it might break your wire.

I tried this method on a few different wires to see if I could clean them all up:
My headphones, which are a really thin,  plastic-coated wire, 

My Garmin wire and my iPad wire (covered in duck tape to keep my cat from chewing it).
As a side note - it totally worked!  My cat hasn't touched it since it's been covered!

  
Tape one end of the wire to the end of a relatively thick pen or pencil and coil tightly around.

Heat with a hairdryer until the coil is hot to the touch, but not melted in any way.

Let cool before removing from the pencil/pen.

Looks successful right?
Nope - this wire was too thin, and as soon as you stretched it to use the earbuds, the coils loosened almost all the way back to their original length.

The Garmin cable was a lot thicker, so it didn't really coil tightly, and once removed from the pen/pencil, it quickly stretched and tangled.

The iPad USB cable did fare better though - and I don't know if it is just the right thickness of wire, or if the duck tape helped?

It did loosen a bit, but is still considerably more compact than having the entire cord laying out.

Just to confirm that I didn't damage any of the wires, I did use them all last night and each one still works.

Still not quite the opening photo - but at least I know I'm on the right track.

Have a great one!