Upcycled Desk Organizers

Yesterday, I posted “Goodwill Desk Gets a Green Makeover”.  In that post I shared how a $25 desk would end up meeting all of our organizational needs for daily things like mail, coupons and bills.  Today, I want to share with you how I upcycled items that I had laying around the house to create desk organizers.  The best part is that this project didn’t cost me a thing!

I’ll start with my 1-2-3 jars.  These jars are just votive holders that I no longer used and had in a drawer labeled candles and candle holders.  Using chalkboard paint, a sponge brush, and a white painter marker (all of which
I already had in my craft drawer), I turned these votive holders into storage for items like paper clips, binder clips and push pins.  If you don’t have votive holders on hand, they are really inexpensive and can be found for less than $1 just about anywhere.  Underneath the votive holders is a note pad and a piece of cut scrapbook paper.  The polka dot scrapbook paper is just for looks.  I thought it accented the desk nicely.

I often purchase fresh flowers every few weeks for my kitchen table and coffee table.  I happened to have this small vase from a garage sale. I think I paid a quarter for it and knew I’d eventually have a use for it.  When I tied a black ribbon around it and added a flower or two from my kitchen table, it became a lovely accent for the kitchen desk.  The ribbon was actually salvaged from a gift set that someone got me at Christmas.  I always try to save stuff like that and put it in my craft drawer until I find a use for it.

An empty pickle jar and some twine from my craft drawer was all it took to create this storage for my basic house items like scissors, tape measure, hammer, screw driver and flash light. 

 

In case you are wondering, a while back I purchased my black and green girl tools at Stein Mart;)  I just thought they were super cute!

To hold pens and pencils, I used an empty corn can, some scrap burlap and more of that black ribbon  I saved from a gift set someone got me for Christmas.

Lastly, I used a container that I’ve had for years to hold the excess change we have when we empty our pockets.

There ya have it!  Simple ways to organize and upcycle in a beautiful way, and you don’t even have to spend very much to do it!

I wont’ show you inside the desk drawer;) That’s my husband’s domain.  I told him that as Iong as I don’t have to look at it, I don’t care.  This desk helped solve all of our problems, and we no longer argue about something as simple as mail on the kitchen counter.

Goodwill Desk Gets a Green Makeover

 

I’m trying to catch up on the blog this moth by posting projects that I’ve completed over the past year, but for whatever reason never made it to the blog until now. 

 

Last spring, I purchased this desk from Goodwill for $25 and gave it a fresh look with some green paint.

 

 

I purchased the desk, because I was getting sick of the hubs leaving the mail or the bills all over the kitchen counter.  Apparently, the cute red mail organizer wasn’t working for him, so I knew I needed a desk with at least one drawer for our organizational needs.

 

I wish I had a before picture of this desk, but I don’t.  Basically, it looked like a paint job gone bad when I purchased it.  Someone probably didn’t know what they were doing when trying to give it a new look, got frustrated, and then chose to donate it.  Their misfortune was my luck, because I really love this piece.

This refinish was really easy.  1) I cleaned the surface.  2) I lightly sanded it to give it to smooth out the surface.  Had someone else not tried to paint it, I probably could have skipped this step.  3) I painted on one coat of Zinsser 123 Primer.  This stuff is the best primer, and you can usually skip  sanding when you prime with it.  For this piece of furniture I chose to use and angled brush rather than my trusty sponge roller, simply because there were a lot of nooks and crannies to paint on this particular piece.  4) Lastly, I painted on two coats of Sherwin Williams Jalapeño Pepper.  I happened to have a sample of this color in satin finish from when we were choosing colors for our downstairs powder room.   
 

 

Samples cost around $6 at Sherwin Williams. The color didn’t work for the powder room, but I think it made a great color for this desk.


 

I think this desk turned out great, and has been a nice pop of color in the kitchen for about a year now.

 

Tomorrow I’ll post about the up-cycled desk organizers I used for this green beauty.

Going Yellow - Overview



Happy Friday!  Just wanted to give a quick overview of this week’ “Going Yellow” series.

On Monday, I shared how I updated my DIY Wall Art from this…..

……to this in a post entitled,  "Wall Art Redo".

 

Tuesday and Thursday, I shared how I updated two of these lamps......

 

.....by first sharing, "When A Lampshade Meets A Napkin"......



 

…..and then by sharing, “ScrapbookPaper Lamp Shade”.

  

And lastly, this decoupaged table was updated from this….

…..to this in Wednesday's post entitled, “ModPodge Table Redo”.

 

The above links share how I updated the living room for less than $100.
 
I have to tell you that I love the yellow and grey living room now.  The room looks so much happier than it did before! 

And to think that all of this yellow was inspired by Target’s round tufted yellow ottoman! 

Going Yellow - Scrapbook Paper Covered Lamp Shade

 

 

 

I’ll be sharing the last project in my “Going Yellow” series today.  When I decided to go yellow in the living room, I knew I wanted to replace or update the lamps.

 

 

I fell in love with this yellow lamp base from Target for $20.   It was a bit pricy for me.  Since I saved money on some of the other projects, I had room in the budget for this lamp.

 

 

I was having a hard time finding a lamp shade that I liked, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money.  I ended up purchasing this $8 white lamp shade from Target.

 

 

I wasn’t fond of the plain white shade and wanted to dress it up a little.  To do this, I took two pieces of scrapbook paper, traced them around the shade, cut the paper out to fit the shade, and hot glued the paper to the edge of the shade.  To clean up the edges I embellished them with some trim I had on hand.

 

 

I really like how this lamp shade turned out!

 

 

I hope you all do too!

 

 

 

Be sure to visit the blog tomorrow.  I’ll  be finishing this series by giving an overview of this week’s projects! 

Going Yellow - Mod Podge Table Redo

 

If you’ve been reading the blog this week, you’re aware of my “Going Yellow” series.  This week I’ve been sharing how I updated my living room  by using yellow accents for less than $100.

 

 

Today I’m sharing an easy redo where this table…..

 

 

 

…was updated to this table.

 

 

The original post , “Decoupaged $5 Goodwill Table”, was about how using paper and Mod Podge on furniture can be a creative an inexpensive way to update thrift store furniture.  For this update, all I did was cover the old paper with new yellow paper using the same method that I shared in the original post.

 

 

I love the black, yellow and grey combination of this space now. 

 

I have one last yellow project to share with you tomorrow, so stay tuned.

 

Going Yellow - When a Lamp Shade Meets a Napkin

 

 

I’m continuing my “Going Yellow” series today with a project I’ve entitled, “When a Lamp Shade Meets a Napkin.”

 

 

Yesterday I shared how I updated my DIY Wall Décor with some new yellow fabric to create DIY Wall Art Redo. Today I want to share how I updated this lamp with a new plain white shade and a festive napkin.

 

The original lamp shade was made with scrapbook paper.  You can go here for that tutorial.  For this update, I kept the Goodwill lamp that I spray painted black, but I got rid of the old lamp shade and made a new one. 

To start I bought a simple $8 lamp shade from Target and $3 napkin from World Market. 

I then tore the napkin in half and hot glued it around the shade. By tearing the napkin in half, I had enough fabric to cover the width of the lamp. The two pieces glued seamlessly together on the sides of the shade, because the napkins already had perfect hems.

I then glued the bottom hem of the napkin to the bottom of the shade.

Carefully making pleats, I glued the torn side of the napkin to the inside top of the shade.  To cover the torn part of the napkin,  I glued some pretty ribbon on the inside of the lamp.

 

I love how the napkin not only had some of the yellow I was looking for, but it also had some other bright colors in it as well. It gave me the right amount of pop I wanted for the space.

 

I'd say this lamp redo was a big success....and an inexpensive one at that.

 

Stay tuned for more yellow projects this week:)

 

 

Going Yellow - DIY Wall Art Redo

 

 

 

Thanks to Pinterest, a post that I wrote awhile ago, DIY WALL DÉCOR, has become one of my most popular posts.  In the original post, I mentioned that when we first moved into our home, I had a small budget for decorating and had to get really creative with what I had on hand.  Back then, I had some leftover green fabric, so I used it to make art.  Before I knew it, one of my most popular blog projects was created.  Today I want to show you how simple it is to update that original project.

 

A few months ago, I wanted to update my living room décor. We recently did some wainscoting downstairs, and it put me in the mood to do a little redecorating. I allowed myself $100 to work with.  I wasn’t trying to recreate the space. I was just wanted to update some of the accents in the room. When I saw this accent piece of furniture on sale at Target, I fell in love with it!  The problem was that it was $50….which was about half of my budget.  I loved the piece so much that I decided to purchase it anyway, and use it as my inspiration.

 

 

 Once I made the purchase I had a plan…..I was going YELLOW! That meant that my green DIY WALL DÉCOR needed a makeover. 

 

 

I started by going to Hobby Lobby, where I found a yellow chevron fabric that I adored. I think it was $7.99 a yard, but I only needed one yard. When I got home I took off the old fabric and stapled on the new. 

That was pretty much it!  My original post has the tutorial. The only thing I did different this time was that I only used fabric….which means it was even easier than the first time!

 

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!

I love the yellow chevron!  I hope you all like it too! 

I have plenty more yellow projects to show this week, so stay tuned.......