The Peanut's New Desk Organizer

As I mentioned the other day, The Peanut and I put together a new desk organizer.   We wanted to make sure her desk was clear and able to be used whenever she wanted for craft projects and fun for the rest of the summer.

Plus, I wanted to clear it off and have it ready before school began again -- it is, after all, intended to be her homework space, too.

Frankly, we've let far too much clutter pile up this summer on all of our flat surfaces, and I've kind of hit a wall with clutter this week and gone on a trash bag frenzy ridding us a bit of excess crap and piling things into donate boxes that could be of better use to someone who needs things we aren't, honestly, ever going to really enjoy.  (You know, all those presents that aren't really you and silly impulse purchases you later regret?  I can't be the only one with a house full of this stuff, can I?) 

I got the original idea for this type of organizer from the Create*Teach*Share blog -- still loving it!   We had a lot of fun making an organizer for my school library desk area, and The Peanut has been wanting to make one of her own ever since.

I wanted to share some pictures of how The Peanut's turned out -- it is really colorful and, best of all, incredibly useful with a small footprint on the top of her desk.

We used some scrapbook papers with bright colors, cutting them to the drawer sizes with a paper cutter and then taping them on with invisible scotch tape.  It isn't quite so invisible at the photo angle above but it completely disappears when the drawers are pushed in completely.

We then figured out what we needed in terms of items that would fit well into the drawers, and then we went to town with the label maker to individually affix a contents label to each one.

There are 18 drawers total in the organizer, and we have a few that aren't labelled as yet.  But I have no doubt that once school begins, we'll find a use for them. 

You can pick up a "stack-on 18-drawer organizer" at Lowe's for less than $20.  Bonus!

She picked out all the paper we used as background colors.  I have to say, it really does brighten up the top of her desk, as you can see in the picture below.

As in my prior classroom organizer craft post, the drawer paper measurements are pretty standard.  In this case, even more so because there is only one size of drawer facing to worry about for cutting out the colored papers.

To make this, you need to cut 18 total colored drawer papers into H 2.12" x W 4.25".

We alternated papers for each drawer to make a funky pattern using some striped paper and some tie-dyed-looking paper -- The Peanut designed what she wanted and momma was just along for the paper cutting and taping assistance here.

As you can tell from the pictures, she had a LOT of fun with my label maker.  Here are a couple more shots of the organizer:

 (All photos by Christy Hardin Smith.)