A few weeks past, I had moved this large shelf unit into my office and then sorted out all my papers and such.  I just love it!  It’s all so tidy and I love that I have now, places to sort all incoming papers and such that I want to save.  However, I wasn’t so pleased with the look of the reused shipping boxes!  Part of me wants to get some of the nice boxes Ikea that you see on the far left of the shelf…  it’s holding all my scrapbooking supplies and such.  But those are a little pricey and a trip to Ikea is not anytime in the near future.

What to do?  Well, Mod Podge to the rescue!

I have quite a few lovely scrapbooking papers and lo and behold, the front of those boxes is exactly 12 x 12!  Perfect!   So I just picked out seven pretty pages in some neat distressed looking patterns and got out the jar of Mod Podge.  If you are not familiar with the stuff, it’s basically a sort of white glue that just really works well with paper.  You can also paint it over paper and it seals it, somewhat like a shellac or varnish.  Just pretty paper safe.  It’s for doing decopage!  Me, I just wanted something a little more prettier than US Postal Service boxes. 

Oh!  It was lovely!  And so fast!  It only took about a half hour total to do this and most of the time was spent on the labels!  Cardboard is your friend!  I love that you can put together some scrap boxes and a little bit of scrap book pretty paper and poof!  Design issue solved for mere change!  Now, one might say, well, the scrapbook pages are pricey.  And they can be.  But mine came from one of those big blocks of a hundred pages…  and I used my 40% off coupon printed online at Micheals and it was only $11.  So that was 77 cents for those seven sheets.  Not too bad!  The boxes were free, rocks came in them.  And I used a wee bit of Mod Podge.  Oh, yes and a piece of paper through the printer.  Less than $2 total.  Ikea boxes would have set me back about $30 or more!  I just printed some basic labels on our printer and trimmed them out.  I looked around for a nicer piece of cardstock but only had white.  Tan would have been nice, but, hey, it’s fine.  If I really think it would be better, I might get my water color paints out and give it a light tan or brown stain…  Yeah, that might be nice!

Absolutely cool!  I love it.  Much nicer than the obvious reused postal boxes!

I am waiting to go and get one more shelf at Ikea, to match this one.  A one by four cubbie tall one.  To go next to the big shelf.  I’ll be moving the gray drawer cabinet and boxes somewhere else.  I want to use that tall one to put all my books in, a lot nicer than they are crammed into those top four on the big shelf.  And I’ll probably put a couple more boxes in there because I am finding that I need a few more for optimal paper sorting.  But right now, I am so digging it!  It’s wonderful!

I still have to go through our spare room.  There are quite a few old boxes in there, children’s papers and old things from college and such, that I want to sort.  I’m waiting for a nice fall day or so to start that project.  Perhaps over the winter.  Right now, all the rest of the papers and such in the house are all neat and tidy and I love it!

I’ve never felt more organizing and tidy then I do now!  It’s marvelous to be able to find something by knowing where it should be!  And then even more exciting to find it there!!!  Yah!  The great July purge of stuff has really made a huge difference!  Still have some areas of discontent, no doubt!  But it’s just less and less every day.  The mud room could use it’s yearly declutter and reorganize but it’s hanging in there pretty well.  Most of our tools and farm things are ending up there and staying in the right places.  It’s nice.  The girls admit it.  Being able to find a tool or project bit when you want it, priceless!  And in the house, I know the studio is really shaping up nicely as is all our craft and sewing stuff.  It really is delightful.

We even went and tidied up the big office shelves!  (They were really quite a mess and we ended up sorting and pitching a HUGE trash bag of stuff!)   Now the shelves are in groups and that is awesome.  Postal supplies, bags and rock stock, finished kits, office equipment… all good!  So much easier already.

It may have taken us almost five years, but we are starting to really feel good about our home and it’s working spaces!  Helps to make for light work and happy workers!