Getting organized

"I have nowhere to put my stuff!!!" he shouts in exasperation. And it's true. My husband sacrificed his desk (which was sent back to his parents' house from whence it originated) to make room for the pack n play in the den/study/place where some of the baby things are. Mine is much smaller, and a family heirloom or it might have been booted as well. Anyway, he often ends up with piles of lots of paperwork items between school, work, boyscouts, young men presidency meetings, bills, medical forms, and all the mail we get. And I get on his case about leaving them on the kitchen counter, or in my hats/gloves/scarves box by the front door. We have a filing cabinet, but who has time to sit there and sort through everything and then file it all???

Well, as it turns out, I DO! So for his birthday, I've created a filing system that he can use to organize his paperwork, do what he wants to do with it, and then stick it in an out box for me to file or throw away/shred. I immediately pictured those tall skinny boxes that look like trapper keeper folders and thought it wouldn't be too pricey to grab a few. Since they would occupy a contained amount of space, they could sit comfortably on top of the filing cabinet. 

And then I thought- heck! I could make them. So I solicited the help of the ladies at church, gathered several cereal boxes and made them pretty in a simple two step process: glue scrapbook paper over the outsides and packing tape the heck out of them- since again, this is the room where some of the baby stuff lives and while she doesn't have her own room, I'd at least like it to look nice as it fulfills multiple roles in our home. 

So here they are. And with them, the promise that all the miscellaneous papers, books, notebooks, binders, and stuff that's hanging out on the floor where the desk was will be sorted through and put away by MY birthday, I give you the cutest freest filing system known to man:  

Eyeballed the first one, and then cut the others to match

Forgot to start by taking "before" pictures, as usual.

This was once a box of granola bars.
 I wanted a smaller, wider one for receipts

All beautiful and finished!

It was fun picking paper that coordinated, but didn't necessarily match. Not that it took any skill- the paper came from a large collection that all coordinates together. They are bound in a book and you just tear off what you want to use. It was pretty easy for me to pick, since yellow, turquoise and red are the colors I've been using the most as I set up baby girl's stuff

Though not likely to be seen, the backs all bring in additional designs. I'm pretty happy with how they look.