What You Make of It: Upcycled Mail Organizer with Eleanor of Oh Louise! Personalized Stationery
One thing that Peter & I have been steadily bad at since
getting married is being organized with our mail… the mail comes, one of us
looks at it & puts it somewhere random & the other never knows that
mail even came! Not good…
So when my
mother-in-law was cleaning her garage out and asked if I wanted an old basket
that used to be brown & forest green, the shape instantly made me think it
could be a mail-organizer that would fit perfectly on the ledge in our entry
hall. And then of course I thought of spray paint & how easily I could jazz
the old basket up.
Supplies: an old basket, box or container with sections,
household cleaner, spray paint, sturdy white paper, computer & printer (or
you could hand write your labels!), glue lines or double sided tape
First I cleaned the basket using household cleaner & a
paper towel.
I then spray painted it with aqua spray paint & let it
dry. I gave the basket 2 coats because of the weaving, to make sure I got all
the nooks and crannies.
I didn’t even spray a protective coat on this one, but at
some point I might if I notice a lot of chipping – that one’s up to you!
Lastly I printed out little tags to further organize us…
One for each of us (so that the other knows where to stick the mail when its
not theirs!), one tag for mail addressed to us both & one for magazines –
we randomly get a lot of those! I attached the tags using acid-free “glue
lines” – you can find them in the scrapbooking section at craft stores. They
work great – much better than double sided tape!
The point of the mail organizer is not to store mail
forever, but just to give it a temporary, happy home when we don’t have time to
deal with the mail, but have already taken it out of the mailbox. So far it’s
working like a charm… no more lost birthday cards and no more (or far less!)
stacks of mail around the house!
Visit our guest contributor Eleanor Boynton at Oh Louise! for her line of
personalized Stationery.