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.